I Shave, Therefore, I Am

I’m trying to come up with a convincing argument for shaving with a razor: not the electric kind, but the old fashioned kind – a stick with a sharpened piece of steel on the end.
I’ve been shaving that way for thirty years, and I don’t want to change: but it’s just not that easy anymore.

It’s still kind of macho though, isn’t it?

Every day, without fail, I take at least one slice out of my pathetic excuse for a face.
Shaving with this sharpened stick shows I can take it. Right?
I don’t have a massive, gleaming, $40,000 pick-up truck, or my own personal back-hoe, or a faded tattoo on my bicep, so the razor is my only way of proving my manhood.
Right?

Besides, it’s required by my religion.

I belong to a little known offshoot of the Mandonites: we’re allowed to use most modern machinery like cars and computers, but are strictly forbidden from using certain unnecessary luxury items – like an electric toothbrush, or an automatic dishwasher, or a cordless beard trimmer.
Shaving with a real blade makes me feel like Harrison Ford in ‘Witness’: my clothes are not fashionable, but those little flecks of dried blood on my lip and chin make me one sexy, God-fearing, knows-how-to-handle-a-hammer kind of guy.
You buying that?

Then there’s Conservation.

In my thirty years of shaving I have saved a lot of electricity.
Five minutes a day, times 365 days a year, times 30 years, times 5 kHz per use, works out to about a barrel and a half of imported oil.
If it were not for my disposable razor we might have invaded Berzerkistan too.
Then again, a disposable razor a week, times 50 weeks, times 30 years, equals a big lump of oil-based plastic that could take 100 years to decompose up there on Mt. Manomet.

Then there’s Gillette, or I guess I should say, Procter & Gamble – one humongous corporation that probably sells a billion little blue razors a day.

If it were not for my regular purchase of five disposable razors a week over the last three decades, two or three hard-working employees of Humongous Inc. would probably have been laid off back in 1983.
Without their union jobs those guys would not have been able to send their kids to college.
At least one of them would probably have buckled under the pressure, taken to the bottle, rented the house across from me, and knocked over my mailbox one night coming home from Karaoke Night at the Wannabee Bar & Grille.

Look, I am going to going to do what I have to, to save the electricity and oil, maintain my masculinity, and keep American jobs in America: but I am going to need a little help.
When I started shaving they had these little devices that popped open so you could slide one single, super-sharp metal blade on to the device.
When the blade was firmly affixed, you simply dragged the razor back and forth over your face until the pain was unbearable or you were finished shaving.
Those blades were fierce. Medicine cabinets in new homes and in hotels were equipped with little slots in the back wall, so you could dispose of the blades between the walls and not risk injury to you, a family member, or a sanitation worker.
Today, I have to admit, shaving is a far less dangerous proposition. Today, the worst that can happen is that you nick yourself a bit, here and there.
But it’s just getting too darn complex.
One blade turned into two, turned into three, turned into four –with no end in sight!
As I understand it, the first blade teases the hair into thinking its going to be cut, so it responds defensively, becoming sullen and unresponsive.
The second blade hops right over that first hair though, and takes a quick hack at the second hair, causing it to become unresponsive as well.
The third blade pretends to negotiate in good faith with the first two hairs, while a fourth blade actually sneaks up from behind and cuts a third hair.
A fifth blade then arrives and, like an old fashion scythe, cuts a broad swath of hair.
A sixth blade makes sure that first hair is cut.
Then you lather and repeat (or is that for shampoo?)
In order to do the job right, and give each of the six blades an opportunity to participate in your morning ritual, requires about 45 minutes.
According to the DVD that comes with each razor, there are ways to reduce the total shaving time - but they advise against it.
There is a button that allows you to use only the blades you want to use (not all six), but that’s a tricky proposition. Which blades are you going to use: the Negotiators, the Scythe, the Hopper?
If you don’t choose the right blades for your follicle condition you risk voiding the conditional guarantee.

I want to keep using my cheap, manly, blade razor, but it’s just getting too complex for me.
I just want a shave, not an engineering degree.
I’m thinking of growing a beard.
Can you blame me?