Razor's Edge

With the recent Live Earth concert, everyone should have had their consciousness raised about the need to recycle, reuse and reduce… You know, change your light bulbs, walk instead of drive, turn the heat down yadda yadda. I believe in doing all of this, but sometimes your own character flaws, strange neurosis and petty obsessions allow you to take the Save the Planet mantra to an extreme.

A case in point.

Andrew and I approach conservation differently… For instance, I go kookoo bananas when food is wasted. I think in a previous life I must have lived through the Depression, because I will eat eight-day-past-its expiry yogurt, I’ll toast horribly stale bread until I can’t taste the staleness (or mould) any longer. I’ve even been known to chuck all of the mysterious, freezer burnt leftovers into a big pot (curry from January! Spaghetti from March! Chicken stir-fry from… I can’t even remember) and then serve it up in one usually delicious, but often a little terrifying, casserole. (I can do this with Andrew as long as I smother the whole thing in cheese, the man would eat rancid boots if they were covered in enough mozzarella).

Andrew, on the other hand is a horrifying food waster – opening milk before the previous carton has been used up, leaving the crusts of his bread, not just eating AROUND the mould spots on the cheese, neglecting to put perfectly good (if someone limp) celery into our salad...

His “thing” when it comes to conservation is preserving electricity. He's my irritating shadow as I move through the apartment, snapping lights off the moment I leave the bedroom, turning the TV off the instant I get up to get a snack. While I appreciate his Al Gore-ish efforts to curb my bad habit, I sort of feel I can't help it, since my whole family were horrible energy wasters. Despite my father hounding us five kids to turn heat and lights off when we left rooms, I can still remember pulling into our driveway after the whole family had been out somewhere, and my father staring at the house, lights blazing out from all windows… “You left every single one on,” he’d mutter, despair edging his voice as he realised another six figure energy bill was coming his way. I didn’t pick up on the conservation message implicit in my father’s sorrow, I just thought the house looked pretty, glittering in the winter night.

So, while Andrew’s desire to extinguish lights is commendable, I sometimes think it’s a bit extreme. The other morning, however, I realised that I had no cause to judge his conservation foibles… Here’s the story:

On a recent visit to Canada I left my very fancy and expensive Venus razor in my sister’s shower. This was terrible because it meant that I would have to buy a new razor, which costs an exorbitant fifteen euros. Yet, in a way it was also liberating. I’ve been a slave to that stupid Venus since Santa put it in my stocking a couple of years ago. While it is a joyous shaving experience, the bloody blades cost a fortune and I would always seethe with righteous indignation when I had to shell out cash and buy news ones.

As a result, I kept using the same blades months after they had lost any ability to actually cut my hair… Instead it was like I was giving myself a little leg massage. So, anyway, having left the razor in Canada, I decided I was now free, and could return to my old love, some lousy men’s Gillette thing… I dug it out from the depths of the medicine cabinet and then hunted up some blades. Unfortunately, I had none left, so I took myself to the Delhaize (sigh) to buy more. Unfortunately (again) I didn’t think to bring the razor with me, so when I got to the broad array of razors and blades, I confidently “eyeballed” it … Needless to say, I didn’t guess right. Returning home, I realised that I had dropped another four euros on useless blades that didn’t fit my razor or Andrew’s. Now, a normal person would have chalked that up to experience and thrown the blades out. Unfortunately, my Depression Era former personality would not let me do something as crazy as waste four euros…

That’s how I found myself in the shower, clutching one of the tiny blades between my fingers, attempting to shave my legs with the blade only. Needless to say the combination of soap, sharp blade, and fumbling fingers, meant that I essentially shredded my fingers, while leaving huge clumps of hair on my damn legs.

I blame Al Gore.