Color Theory with Miss Bessy Belch

This morning I was observing as Chris was looking for a tie to go with his pants. I congratulated him on his choice of tie and told him they went well together. He said, "look I matched the blue in the tie with my blue pants." He was surprised when I told him that his pants were black and that the color in his tie which he thought was blue, was really gray. We both were correct in his ability to dress himself, but if the women at work were to compliment him on his nice black pants and yellow and gray tie, he would be quite confused.

"The most common form of color blindness is inherited. However color blindness can also be caused by diseases such as macular degeneration, poisoning and side effects of medication. Women are usually the 'carriers' of the defect which is passed on through a defective x chromosome. It is mostly men who inherit color blindness, affecting about 1 in 20 men for every 1 in 200 women."

Pasted from <http://menshealth.about.com/od/geneticconditionsinmen/a/color_blind.htm>

According to this article it's partially women's fault when their helpmeet comes out dressed in navy blue pants, black socks, brown loafers, a red shirt and a purple plaid tie. So, in the end, we, the bearers of the "x" are to blame for male color blindness, which should encourage a little more patience with their error in the color department. Chris thinks women see more colors in general then do men. I'd have to agree with him. The greatest difficulty mostly comes where the colors are transitioning to another color on the wheel. The black to dark blue, dark blue to purple. After this fashion faux pas we had a conversation where we talked about my dark purple shirt that he thought was blue and came to an agreement by renaming that color between blue and purple, "burple." Maybe we could patent that color, for weirder things have been done.

Can you see where "burple" would be?

I was curious if anyone actually had patented a color, but I couldn't find one but here's an example of a totally absurd patent, just so you know "burple" really could patented.

Cow Gas
US Patent Issued In 1973

"Is the problem of trying to collect and measure gas emissions from livestock (or maybe your in-laws) keeping you awake at nights? Have you ever wondered exactly how much energy cow burps emit? Now your curiosity can be satisfied with the 1993 patent of the 'System for Measuring Metabolic Gas Emissions From Animals"! Designed to measure how much energy free-roaming livestock actually use, this device will help identify the feeding systems which allow the most efficient use of energy for the health of the cow.

But wait! The device is fun and easy to use! First feed the subject the tube which acts as an internal tracer. Attach the end of the tracer tube to the inflatable collar placed around the animals neck. With every breath, metabolic gas samples are collected and analyzed. Hey, who said bovine belches aren't fun?" http://totallyabsurd.com/cowgas.htm

Dressing your husband can also be fun, maybe not as fun as that inflatable collar. But like this invention, it just takes another level of gas and creativity. I can learn to help with gentle hints like "I think there's a stain on that tie, let me go get you a different one." Today, my charitable heart was tempted to get a Sharpie and write the color of his pants on the inside tag, "blue", "black", "gray", "burple." He might be insulted at first, but in the end he'll thank me...I hope.