The Pittsburgh Press (June 18, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
NEW YORK – Well, I notice that Dr. Hope Eldridge of the Census Bureau says that the ratio of men to women is decreasing but she believes that the scarcity of males will have little effect on husband-hunting except in the imagination.
Goodness, husband-hunting has always been largely a matter of imagination. When she’s young, a girl imagines that she’ll marry a man who’s a combination of Adonis and John D. Rockefeller. When the reality turns out to be a combination of Just Plain Bill and Mr. Micawber, she imagines that this is even better.
In her imagination, she is being pursued by this particular gentleman, and if they’re both using the proper technique, he also imagines that he’s pursuing her – and everyone is happy except the marriage license clerk who ran out of imagination a long time ago and whose feet hurt standing up so much.