The morning shave is a necessary evil for me. I do not think a beard would fill in well for me and if it did, I am afraid instead of it making me look lie a “distinguished gentleman” it would just make me look like an “old geezer.”

Alas this is not a new struggle. Man has been fighting the never ending battle with facial hair since the dawn of history. Over the course of his life, a man will typically spend 3,000 hours of his life shaving. I have been told that I first tried shaving while on a family vacation when I was two years old. fortunately, I do not remember the experience but I think there is a faint scar on my lip to attest to the veracity of the event.

In the early days of history as shaving spread through the civilized world, men of unshaven societies – those “unbarbered” became known as “barbarians.” For thousands of years man struggled with items like stone, flint, clamshells and any other sharp material they could find. A big breakthrough came with the steel straight razor and men flocked to see the barber who could offer a close shave at a reasonable price.

An even bigger break came in 1903, when Gillette introduced the world’s first system razor—a two-piece safety razor with a thin, strong, sharp double-edge blade attached to a reusable handle. For several decades man was happy with this wonder of modern technology. Then in 1974 Bic introduced the disposable razor. Now you could just throw the whole thing away and get a new one. The razor wars were on now! In 1977 Gillette brought out the Trac II with not one, but two blades! Then March 1998 saw the introduction by Gillette of the Mach3 with not one, not two but three blades!

Recently I needed a new razor and when I went to the razor supply in my bathroom I pulled out a FIVE blade razor! It makes me wonder where this will stop 6? 8? 15? 25? Will it stop when the the razor covers the entire side of your face? One stroke on the right, one stroke on the left and you are done! I suppose that might cut down on what remains of the 3000 hours I will spend shaving. I am all for progress but there has to be a limit on this somewhere.

Maybe I will begin my own little protest movement to end this craziness and return to a simpler time. So, if you will excuse me, I need to go find a clamshell or a sharp rock.

This evening I need to rant for a few minutes. I have noticed lately that I am hearing the word “countless a lot. Each time I hear this word, a little voice in my head asks, “is this really countless?”

I have heard news stories stating that if this or that had been done during the COVID pandemic that “countless” lives would have been saved. The thought occurred to me that we do count the lives lost, so would not the lives that could have been saved be equal to or less than those who have died?

A few weeks ago, there was a story of a bar that was preparing for New Year’s Eve that had “countless” drink options. I have a feeling that the number of drink options could be counted. Even faster than counting would be to calculate the number of combinations give the number of ingredients – high school math flashback warning – shown below:

My point is, given the tools that we have at our disposal today, just about anything can be counted. As is often the case, we are just too lazy to keep track or do the math. There are probably some exceptions, the number of grains of sand on the beach (although you could extrapolate a number based on a small sample) and the number of stars in the sky.

So, with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her Sonnet 43 (See-she kept track of her sonnets!), let us stop with the overuse of “countless” and start counting. By the way, when she wrote, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” there were less than 30 ways set forth. I know this because I read the poem and counted them.