Michael Kelly does without . . shaving
I hate it when big corporations take over (or invent) a daily routine and then make you pay through the nose for it, like some form of tax. "One-a-day" advertising for pro-biotic drinks is a good example. Do they really think we can't see through that?
That's why I hate buying razors. I hate the way they change the razor design so regularly, and then phase out the accompanying blades, forcing you to upgrade. I hate the fact that the blades are so expensive. €16 for an eight-pack of blades? That's extortion.
Then there are those overtly-macho names. Mach 3. Mach-3 Turbo. Mach-3 Turbo Power. Force 5. (OK, I made the last one up). Shaving is macho. We get it. Then there are the increasingly bizarre designs - the latest models have five blades on the end of one razor. Where does it all end?
Why not get Edward Scissorhands in to shave you instead? So I was really looking forward to giving up shaving. Days one and two were fine, and at that stage it was actually pretty cool, in a Ryan Giggs kind of way. Day three and four were more difficult - the stubble was itchy and I couldn't stop at it, massaging it like a beatnik pondering the mystery of life. A man has 30,000 hairs in his beard and I could feel every one of them.
On the fourth day I actually got a spot below my lower lip. I felt like a pubescent teenager (what I would have done for hair on my face back then). The stubble started to soften up towards the weekend. The gradual growth means you don't get any great sense of change, so it's only when you meet someone who has only ever seen you clean-shaven that you realise you look terrible.
When my sister saw it, she laughed so hard she gave herself a pain. "It puts 10 years on you," she said. I've noticed that some of the growth is actually a reddish hue. Mrs Kelly started calling me "Ginger" and refused to even countenance kissing me. In a shop in town I happened to catch sight of myself in a mirror and it scared the lights out of me. I looked like Ronnie Drew.
By the end of the week, I couldn't wait to shave. You never feel really clean with a beard. I would get out of the shower and think "why did I bother?". So it's back to the Force-5 Xtreme Powers for me. Or maybe I could buy one of those cut-throat razors?