Brush your teeth, Billy! Moooooom!! I’m still playing *insert appropriate era-specific game reference*! But Billy, if you don’t brush your teeth, they’ll get yellow and fall out and then you’ll wish you brushed them properly. *Epically overdone groan* FIIIINE!! I’ll brush them, MOM!
Billy’s being a bit of a dick. But he’s only nine. Life fact #42: Nine year-olds can be dicks. It’s not even that Billy is going out of his way to be one – he’s genuinely ignorant of how valuable a clean set of gnashers will be for his future goals of getting laid, making a good impression in job interviews and being able to tackle a piece of toast when he’s north of 85. Ergo, he is also ignorant of how valuable a decent oral hygiene routine can be. Fucking Billy. What a dick.
Billy’s being a bit of a dick. But he’s only nine. Life fact #42: Nine year-olds can be dicks. It’s not even that Billy is going out of his way to be one – he’s genuinely ignorant of how valuable a clean set of gnashers will be for his future goals of getting laid, making a good impression in job interviews and being able to tackle a piece of toast when he’s north of 85. Ergo, he is also ignorant of how valuable a decent oral hygiene routine can be. Fucking Billy. What a dick.
Far be it from me or you to look down on dicky Bill and his ignorance. Life is full of unappreciated routines and unappreciated cogs in the great big, whirring machine. Yes, yes, there are all the standard-issue unappreciated items: calling family once in a while, Pilates, washing your pillowcases every week or so. Bless. And in the world of straight razor shaving, the value of a properly lapped hone cannot be overestimated.
The fuck? you ask. The fuck, indeed. Recall in a distant post, how I mentioned that a straight razor is sharpened on a hone (or sharpening stone). The blade is passed along the hone’s surface over and over in massively varied techniques, until enough metal has been removed from the blade’s edge to render said blade appropriate for shaving. But for each pass of the razor, the hone also loses a teency weency part of its own surface. Over time, the hone becomes uneven. Is this a biggie? Fucking obviously. No matter how solid your honing technique, if your hone is uneven, your razor will end up chewing your face like a fresh piece of bubble gum. In order to avoid this, a hone should be lapped every couple of months or so and it’s actually quite a simple thing to do.
But, I see your eyes glazing over. Probably because (despite my excellent advice and its numerous benefits) you’re unlikely to ever own and use a straight razor. Fucktard. But who knows, one day, you might. So, allow me to burn the importance of a well-lapped hone into your brain with a simple analogy.
Use your paltry imagination at full blast:
Picture it. You’ve invested 20 000 of your own bucks into a project, i.e. the sum total of your life savings. You have a dream to be a respected director of film-noir, an alleged heroin dabbler and the owner of sprawling, garish mansions in LA, Barthelona and Buenoth Aireth. Right now though, you’re a broke nobody - hungry and desperate. But this project could be your big break. Sure, it’s not exactly what you had in mind. It’s not even an option you considered. But everyone has to start somewhere. Maybe this will make you a little bit of money, maybe enough to cover rent for the next six months while you work on your screenplay that sits somewhere between Brick, Strangers on a Train and Scarface (the 1932 version, naturally). But your hope is muted. You are, after all, directing the closing scene of your first movie: There’s Something Inside Mary, Part 3. Yup, porn. Nice one, fucktard. Great plan. And, as you call Action in a shameful bleat, hoping to bring the project to a conclusion, your male lead, Jack Hammer, turns to you and gestures helplessly. Aye captain, bad news. The main-mast is down. Your heart sinks. You’re over budget, it’s already 10 at night and you can’t afford to call the crew in for another day of shooting.
Use your paltry imagination at full blast:
Picture it. You’ve invested 20 000 of your own bucks into a project, i.e. the sum total of your life savings. You have a dream to be a respected director of film-noir, an alleged heroin dabbler and the owner of sprawling, garish mansions in LA, Barthelona and Buenoth Aireth. Right now though, you’re a broke nobody - hungry and desperate. But this project could be your big break. Sure, it’s not exactly what you had in mind. It’s not even an option you considered. But everyone has to start somewhere. Maybe this will make you a little bit of money, maybe enough to cover rent for the next six months while you work on your screenplay that sits somewhere between Brick, Strangers on a Train and Scarface (the 1932 version, naturally). But your hope is muted. You are, after all, directing the closing scene of your first movie: There’s Something Inside Mary, Part 3. Yup, porn. Nice one, fucktard. Great plan. And, as you call Action in a shameful bleat, hoping to bring the project to a conclusion, your male lead, Jack Hammer, turns to you and gestures helplessly. Aye captain, bad news. The main-mast is down. Your heart sinks. You’re over budget, it’s already 10 at night and you can’t afford to call the crew in for another day of shooting.
And just then, at your career’s nadir, your guardian angel saunters sulkily onto the set. A grizzly woman with more sinew than you’d see on a dope-toting cyclist and a shorter smile than the Ukraine-hungry Vlad. Her hair is thinning and oily, her clothes baggy and mismatched and she is most definitely inebriated. Like all good guardian angels, she has an innate sense of when she’s needed and before you even have the chance to shriek Fluffer, where are you?, she’s there. She takes one look at Jack Hammer, shakes her head and gestures for him to head to “wardrobe” (a moth-eaten curtain draped against the wall). She follows him in, belching as she draws the curtain closed. And in three minutes, Jack Hammer, emerges from wardrobe, boasting a proud you-know-what. Let’s shoot this scene! you yell in desperate relief. And, as you turn to thank her, you realise your guardian angel has slipped away. Unheard, unseen and unthanked, she has returned to the night to await her next call to arms. Either that, or she's still in wardrobe, taking a gin-induced power nap.
So, you cretins. Have appreciation for the vital, invisible cogs that keep our lives a-turning. Brush your teeth, lap your hones and always, always remember to thank your fluffers.
So, you cretins. Have appreciation for the vital, invisible cogs that keep our lives a-turning. Brush your teeth, lap your hones and always, always remember to thank your fluffers.