A Little Perspective
A horrible, horrible thing happened to me this morning. I stayed the night at my girlfriend's last night, and woke up realizing that I had to be to work in an hour, and I badly needed a shave after taking the weekend off. Normally I don't like to leave the house without a fresh one, let alone go to work, but occasionally I do get lazy. It's not like I work for a corportation with a dress-code either, so I can typically get away with it.
Anyway, I had no equipment at the girlfriend's as I normally prepare in advance for these scenarios by putting in a good session in front of the mirror the night before, knowing damn well that my 12-hour straight-razor wetshave looks fresher than my co-workers' attempts at depilation. Anyway, I must have been in a hurry last night (can't be late for a sushi date), because this is the first time I've had to deal with this nightmare decision: a) go to work with a full on two-day Michael Vartan, or b) use the girlfriend's razor. Her razor is a cheap plastic disposable that's been legally dead for about three weeks now. The soap could have been worse (Shave My Face… at least it's got glycerin), which was just enough to push me off the fence into bad shaveland, territory upon which I had not tread in almost a year.
And tread deeply I did. And holy shit did it hurt. I raked that think all over my prize-winning mug in a vain effort to whack some of that brush down. Just the feeling of weghtlessness alone told me that this thing didn't have the foggiest clue of what it was supposed to be. It's like it was denied eight seconds of oxygen while in the womb and popped out looking like a thalydimide baby. I finally did cut that lawn down, but I paid dearly.
The one thing I had forgotten about these things is just how much poor technique they let you get away with. It really made me wonder just how anybody manages to cut themselves with these things. That's when I remembered one of the forgotten reasons why I do this. Because it requires some brainpower. The earlier in the day you start actually using your brain, the better off you are. And the more time you spend simply going through the motions, the less time you spend evolving.