William's Decision

William Baker was always a realist, and he lived a realist's life. When he graduated high school he went to work, feeling college was too big of a gamble. He worked hard in the restaurant industry for a few years before opening his own hamburger stand. He made quality burgers and his business thrived and expanded to three burger stands by the time he reached 30. Business was good, but his personal life had gotten complicated.

"So what are you going to do?" asked Phil Banks, who ran one of his stands.

"I'm going to pick one based on what I find most important" replied William.

William, being a moderately successful bachelor in a small town, had the blessing and curse of attention from the town's women. During the last couple of years he had been regularly dating three attractive women, all of them aware of the others. He took them all out regularly and found them each to be desirable in her own way.

Though he had been enjoying playing the field it seemed they hadn't. At some point they had conspired and now they were giving him an ultimatum: It was time to pick a wife. They told him he had a month to decide.

The next day William went to the bank and withdrew $3000. He gave each of his girlfriends $1000 and told them to go out and spend it as they pleased. They all thought that this was kind of odd, but none of them complained.

After a few weeks had passed William went to his youngest girlfriend, Jessica, and casually asked her what she had spent her $1000 on. She told him that she had went to the mall and spent most of it on clothes, makeup, and accessories. "I want to look good for you baby" she had said. He told her that she was doing a good job of it and spent the evening with her.

The next day he went to the home of his oldest girlfriend, Anna, and asked her about how she had spent the money. She smiled and said, "I was waiting for a special occasion, but because you asked I guess Ill show you now."

"Show me what?" William asked.

She led him to the hall closet and, after digging around for a bit, produced a nice new hunting bow and a quiver full of arrows. "I know you like to go hunting" she said, "and I know that you haven't been because you don't think you have the time, so I'm giving you this to force you to go out and relax a little bit."

William thanked her and ended up spending the night there. The next day he went to his other girlfriend Janice's apartment and after a little conversation brought up the money.

"Check this out" she said, walking over to her computer. She went to an online trading site and opened and account with both of their names on it. "I took the $1000 and carefully played the market with it. Iv'e almost doubled it within a month!" William patted her on the back. He didn't understand stock trading, but he thought that was pretty impressive. He took her out for dinner and they both spent the night at his house.

The next day he was in Phil's stand taking inventory. Business was slow and he and Phil started chatting. Eventually the conversation got back to the girlfriends. William told Phil about how he had given each of the women $1000 and how each of them had used it.

"So now do you know which one you want to marry?" asked Phil

William replied, "Oh, I decided that a month ago. I'm gonna marry the one with the nice butt."