Pro Choice

It's a world of choices here in the land of the taxed and the home of the victimized. We may end up picking the most white-bread, middle-class, beige-colored, middle-of-the-road thing we can, but at least we had a choice about it, by gum!

We go to our friendly, neighborhood, big-box grocery/florist/bank/book emporium/coffee shoppe/diner/drugstore to get some green beans. We walk out, having purchased a can of the store-brand green beans that were grown, harvested, and processed in Oelwein, Iowa...but we are smug and self-satisfied knowing that we passed over the vacuum-sealed, organically-grown, individually-inspected, verdant legumes of Puerto Maldonado, Peru.

This penchant for having choices available wouldn't even be worth mentioning except for the following evidence that we have gone far too far. It comes from a conversation I had with a former youth-group member who was doing some work in the admissions office of his college . . .

The question was raised, discussed and decided upon that the college's entrance application was too restrictive when it gave only two choices in the category Gender. Gender. Male/Female. Two choices. Not enough.

Then this former youth-group member told me that he knew of one college that had over 20 choices for Gender. It was at that point of the conversation that I had a brain aneurysm. I mean, I can understand three choices: Male, Female, Michael Jackson...but over 20?

I should be out of the hospital soon, assuming that I have the choice to pay my bill in either dollars or spitwads.