Scoff and You Scoff Alone

Those who know me know that I have a long and storied history of making fun of things. I agonized about what word to use in place of "things", but I could not come up with a word with enough totality. It isn't just movies like Miami Vice (do you know what is meant by foreboding? It means badness that is going on right now), or television shoes like Blind Justice (in which we had to be constantly reminded that the protagonist was, indeed, blind). My venom can reach from pop culture to current affairs to consumer goods. Most recently, I've been savaging the new Gillette Fusion with it's 5 blades on the front and 1 on the back. This is familiar territory for me, as I made snarky comments about the Mach3 Turbo and M3Power, both of which I bought later. This is the biggest problem with my outsized mouth--it very often has to eat its words. Some people would be embarrassed to be seen using a product that they very recently called "idiotic" and "a waste", but I am a shameless hypocrite who is a sucker for a close shave.

The crux of my complaints (I am speaking only of razors now, not gay marriage amendments or Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas) is that consumers get hoodwinked into using new razors when there is nothing appreciably wrong with their current ones. Is there really a subset of American men who were yearning for more aloe strips on their blade? We seem to be getting more blades without really understanding if we needs them. As was reported (somewhat cheekily) in the best magazine in the world the curve for blades is following something of a parabolic curve and at the end of the decade we should be looking at ten blades. Some might recall an old SNL sketch that lampooned what I've dubbed "blade proliferation" with dozens of razors rotating on a fan and cutting up Tim Meadows's face (I think it was TM, but it could have been Anchorman). We are laughably close to such a reality. Before I would have sneered at these developments and thought I was being duped. But I am a convert to the Church of Latter Day Razors. Bring 'em on. I've used the new Fusion and it is a much closer shave than I've ever had, as I always knew but was loath to admit. If that day should come where they've added so many blades to the device that I'll have to yank a chain to start the damned thing, I will do some tricep stretches and let it rip like a lawnmower.

You should buy this razor, even if you feel like an idiot when you do. Don't worry, I was one of you once--the swarthy, unenlightened masses. Now I have seen the light, and those glorious extra blades gleam in it.