It Doesn’t Cut Like a

It Doesn’t Cut Like a Knife

It is surprising, then, that a country with such an impressive list of breakthroughs seems utterly incapable of producing a good electric shaver. Yet this is undoubtedly the case. To make matter’s worse, our friends in sundry other countries appear equally unable to inventing such a shaver.

And, given the previous brilliant cultural achievements of the Saudis, we wouldn’t hold our breath for a wondrous Arab electric razor. (Though God knows they could use it.)

We mention this, dear reader, because we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have all tried our hands—and faces—at electric razors. We must report that we have all wasted our money.

And when we say “all,” we mean “all” (no Clinton-esque parsing of words here). The female members of the crack young staff—who make up around 47 percent of our team—are graduate students, and therefore need to shave their faces. Q.E.D.

Accordingly, we can all report that electric razors are completely useless. That is unless you aim to irritate your skin whilst plucking exactly three hairs from your chin.

In fact, electric razors are so awful that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” have long wondered what their respective inventors have been thinking. Have they pondered questions such as “How can I make a razor that will cut off one-third of a man’s beard, so that he looks like some kind of disoriented derelict?”

Naturally, this is all in distinct contrast to the geniuses behind old-fashioned hand-held razors. As we noted long, long ago, the folks at Gillette are ultra-irksome: We don’t want to be told that a plastic razor is “the best a man can get,” no matter how many blades you put on it.

All the same, the hawkers of these old standbys have at least had the decency to augment their razors with more and more blades. This may not be the greatest example of technological progress the world has ever seen, but, hey, it’s better than Yemen.

It is all strikingly superior to the pathetic non-improvements of the electric razor. Whilst hairstyles come and go, whilst Communism came and went, the same old electric razors keep on coming. In electric razor land, the only notable advance of the last three decades has been the addition of some sort of goop to a few models.

Boy, what an advance. Don’t overwhelm us. In fact, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have become so infuriated with electric razors that we aim to alter the quasi-famous slogan of one of their producers: “Shaves as close as the Los Angeles Clippers are to first place, or your money back.”

It’s not particularly catchy, but it has the bonus of being accurate.