Arrival at the mall

Your designs are very nice, but I need clothing that is a bit more… practical.

Practical? I'm an artist of fabric. A weaver of dreams. And you ask for practical?

Here's what you wore in customs. I ask you, with the finest robot designer at your service, would you really want to wear something like… that?

Yes. Exactly. Two outfits just like that.

You're a philistine, aren't you?

Arrival at the mall

For the next outfit, could you please be more conservative?

Sigh. If I must.

I was merely adding flair to make up for your basic physical shortcomings.

Short comings?

What can I say? Design possibilities are limited for people who don't have their own power supplies.

Arrival at the mall

Hi, Niomi. We're almost done. Could you please check the colors?

Oh, sure.

Those are some nice outfits.

Of course. I'm a genius.

Who but me could make clothing designed to look good even when covered with dog hair?

Arrival at the mall

That one needs to be a little more yellow. There. That's it.

The outfits are now perfect. They can't be made any better.

Now that we've found exactly what you want, let's go shop someplace else.

Arrival at the mall

If I have what you want, you should buy it here! You're operating off model!

Off model?

Yes. It's a project of ours. We've been trying to make a male and female model that we can use to accurately predict human behavior.

Ha! Good luck!

See! Now that response the model predicted!

Arrival at the mall

You can't predict human behavior. Not everyone acts logically like I do.

Then explain logically why you have to leave after we've found what we want.

Well, I… It's because… I mean…

Hey, just because I don't know why I do something doesn't mean there isn't a good reason for it.

Actually that's kind of our point.

Arrival at the mall

The theory is that humans used to be hunter/gatherers with definite male and female roles.

The difference in how men and women shop can be traced to those roots.

You expect me to believe my husband descended from gatherers? He doesn't even pick up his socks!

This may sound strange to you, but really, men were the hunters.

Arrival at the mall

Hunters try to make the kill when the opportunity arises. We also think trying to predict what the prey will do led to imagination and storytelling.

Of course it was possible to have TOO much imagination.

Which led directly to the rise of skepticism.

No bunny today. Had to run from invisible dragon.

Riiiiiight.

Arrival at the mall

The gatherer wanders until they see something they want. It's here where our model breaks down.

Ooh! Apples! Me like apples!

Instead of gathering the object, they will often leave and continue to search. Do you have any Idea why this occurs?

Great! You just gave an engineer a problem that can't be solved with duct tape. Now we're going to be stuck here all day.

There are problems that can't be solved with duct tape?

Arrival at the mall

I can see two reasons for gathering like that. Energy and carrying capacity.

It would waste energy to come back to camp after each find. To take the find away from camp is also wasteful.

The gatherer is limited in how much they can carry. Picking something up means you may find something better later on. Then you have to leave it or abandon resources you may need later.

The most efficient method would be to walk out gathering nothing, then return to camp picking up the best of what you'd found.

That pattern matches much of our observation. Thank you.

Yes, it does make how women shop seem much more logical.

No man is to EVER see this.

If I had lips, you could consider them sealed.

Один из самых жизненно-ценных стрипов во всём комиксе. Серьёзно меняет мужские взгляды на походы по магазинам. А опасения Найоми, кажется, связаны с появлением массового шопоголизма у мужчин. Это было бы страшным явлением (Robot Spike)