Little, Tiny Hairs Growin' Outta Mah Face...

There's something tragic in the shaving ritual. Most guys do it in the morning, bleary eyed and facing another eight hours of selling their time. If you look outside, you can imagine all the other things you could be doing - even if it's just laundry - and it seems so stupid that you're in your skivvies, looking at your reflection, removing the growth that happened while you slept just so people don't look at you like you have some form of social stigma like alcoholism or a love of sweet, sweet heroin.

Then you put a bladed instrument, preferably razor sharp, to your throat and slowly, gently, mow it down. It only takes a pound of pressure to break human skin, and there you are, not completely wake, running what is really just a modified knife over a fairly important area of blood flow and removing it's natural protection while facing the prospect of spending a good chunk of the day doing something stressful.

I can't be the only one who has gotten worried about an ill-timed sneeze resulting in sudden decapitation.

Which brings me to this - I recently picked up a shaving cream with menthol in it by mistake. I used to smoke menthol cigarettes, which still taste like your licking an ashtray but have a hint of mostly useless "refreshing" mint. They always seemed like a little bit of a lie to me, like sugar based toothpaste - your lungs are still going black and to top it off an Andes mint just shit on your tongue. The idea of applying this to body care and grooming doesn't seem to make a lick of sense, until I actually used it.

Now, as a caveat, I have to tell you that this is not my first run in with menthol additions to cleaning products. when I visited my brother while he was teaching, I bought a body wash that said it had menthol in it. It was like scrubbing with horseradish - every pore opened up and my nostrils attempted to shut themselves (and given their Judd Nelson-like state of being, they made a pretty good go of it). Then there was the after effect of having what might have been on the level of a physical rebirth - all pain and the feeling of your body being engulfed in fire - of being able to breath perfectly in a city where you can only see three feet in front of you at sea level because the smog is that thick. Sure, I was glad to be alive - the shower had been life affirming (chanting "I don't want to die" while washing your particulars will really make you rethink where you're going) but I was in the wrong place for such an awakening.

Now, though, I have this can of shave cream and my razor. I lathered my cheeks, caught the scent, and felt a part of me recoil. Then I covered the area under my nose. For a second I looked into the eyes of my reflection, and saw the advice Be very, very careful. Because shaving is one of those things you don't want to do while crying. It smears the cream, which makes you want to do it faster, which will cause you to either have razor burn or minor lacerations. And with the location of the tear ducts, this will make you look like you either have herpes or were going for that Glasgow smile that people seem to be digging these days, respectively.

Then there is the worry of cutting yourself anywhere else - which goes from the fear of an accidental suicide to the sudden terror of know that the menthol could now, nightmare like, get into your blood stream like the white blood cell version of the SS. Even the good bacteria rounded up in the colon and bladder ghettos to be expelled.

So, maybe all of this is part of the vampire fad. "Edward, man, you look like a slaughter house - *sniff sniff* - and did an Andes mint give you a Cleveland Steamer?"