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You wait until the last minute, hoping for inspiration. You seek clues. You ransack your brain for fresh ideas.
You get none.
What does Dad want for Father’s Day? He’s apt to shrug and say, ‘Nothing.’ (He may be thinking: A few hours on the couch, with a six-pack and a Cubs game and no interruptions sounds good.)
In years past, this noncommittal response would trigger a desperation strategy: He’d get a necktie.
For generations, the tie was the default, all-purpose Father’s Day gift. You couldn’t go too far wrong. Even if Dad didn’t need any more—and how could you tell, anyway?—he could still
use one. And if you had a budget, say of $50 or so, as one female colleague noted, “what else on Earth could you buy the man?” But now, the tie is slouching toward extinction, a silky vestige of another time, useful as a rash.
Only about 6 percent of men wear ties every day to the office, according to a Gallup Poll. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Men’s Dress Furnishings Association, the trade group that represents American tie makers, was shutting down after 60 years. As the Journal noted dryly, some of its members “sensed the trend two years ago, when, at the group’s annual luncheon in New York, a number of people turned up tieless.”
The demise of the tie—as fashion statement or gift—reminds us that Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are not created equal. Buying a gift for Dad is a lot harder.
Moms are good at dropping broad hints. They know what they want. Every woman we know keeps a mental list of all the clothing, jewelry, purses, perfumes, spa services and other items of desire, ready to rattle off at a moment’s notice. Even if a spouse or child fails to ask, the default position—flowers—rarely fails.

chicagotribune.com