Blade Runner 

Shave and a haircut, two bits?! Outrageous!

The beard? This hair on my mug? It is temporary and temporal. I stopped shaving for a little while - it's not like I grew a beard, that's just a consequence of not shaving. I just got tired of using those crappy little blades that you throw away. Plus, they are insanely expensive. Insanely expensive garbage. Sometimes a blade lasts for a week, but usually just 2-3 shaves. Where's the quality control? I know no one wants to sell me a ceramic blade razor that I'll never have to sharpen or throw out. I get it. It's like when they give you a free printer as long as you pay $100 every other month for ink. For ink! Why is the disposable part the expensive part? Why is ink more expensive than oil or gas or I don't know… everything.

That's what happened with shaving. The blades used to be $15 for 8. Not cheap but reasonable, I guessed. Then $17 for 8. Then $18. Then $19.99. Then $25 for an eight-pack! I figured I could buy a good electric razor for about four months worth of blades. I don't even shave that much. Every other day at most. I usually use a four-pack a month, maybe breaking into a second four-pack. On average I use one blade for three shaves. I shave about 3 times a week, so it's about $25 for 2 months, which is $150 a year. A good electric razor runs about $200, but recently I saw I had enough Air Mile points to get one that was $189. Then that particular razor became available on Amazon and Futureshop for $89. I don't want to bore you with the math, which I could scarcely understand myself but as soon as the razor went on sale, it's Air Miles value changed dramatically (meaning I wasn't getting good value per Air Mile point, which seems to fluctuate between 1 to 15 ancient Nubian cowrie shells per Air Mile point). Regardless, it would have been a poor use of my Air Miles.

Besides I'm tired of paying for the Gillette family vacations. Screw them! Go get a real job you little shits! When I ran out of blades, I just stopped shaving. I ordered an electric razor last week. When it arrives, good-bye beardy!

You'll know when the razor arrives because I'll be clean shaven. I'm getting pretty tired of this beard. Paul Rudd has said you know you've got a bid beard when you look down, and you see it. I think a beard is too long when you start combing it. It's really too long when you start combing out dead red-wing blackbirds.

On a side note, apparently in the 21st century, razors are now called "Shavers"? Where did this word come from? Shavers? I "shave" with a "razor", just like I "pedal" a bicycle. I don't "pedal" a "pedaler"? I "cut" with a "knife", I don't "knife" a potato, unless I'm in potato prison and some big Yukon Gold wants to make me his Fingerling. No way "Yukon"! You get "knifed".

What exactly has become of the language I once spoke? The world I growed up in is long gone.

UPDATE: I just came back from lunch and lo & behold, there on my desk was a package containing the Philips Norelco Sensotouch 2D Electric Shaver. I can't help but think I should run out and commit a crime wave under the banner of "Bearded Bandit Breaks Bank Vault" then like totally getting away with it because I would shave my whiskers like The Blade Runner in The Fugitive. Time is running out on this beard. It's plans to slowly grow back into my head, Triffid-like, are numbered. Tonight, WE SHAVE!