It's late summer, and I've got too little on my mind of any real consequence, so it's time for another session of "What grinds my gears".
Razor blades. I’ve been using Gillette razors for many years since switching from electric to wet shaving in 1971, and I never went back. I like to use the Sensor or Sensor Excel blades. I get that 2 blades are better than 1, and I like the swiveling head and flexible blades. What’s with all the different razor blades now sold by Gillette? I get why the prices have gone up (IMO they went shockingly high), fewer men are shaving. But why is there such a bewildering variety of razor blades? And who really believes that they need 5 blades to shave with
? The other day, I was in the grocery store, and I remembered I needed razor blades. When I looked at the large variety available, there were so many choices that I didn’t know what would or wouldn’t fit my Sensor handle. Gillette had sold good products for many years. Employees had long said it was a good company and kept their jobs for a long time. Apparently, a number of years ago, Procter & Gamble bought Gillette. Now the marketing & sales people who seem to run that company are racing to see if they can run it into the ground.
Kid’s these days… To be more specific, people who are members of the generation that followed my own (baby boomer – born in 1948). Earlier this month, I spent a week at the beach with other members of my family. I had a very good time with my own kids (born in 1983 & 85) and several of their cousins, some of whom had kids of their own. In general, I have no complaints. But I was exposed to some bizarre ideas that at least two members of that younger generation espouse. (I kept my mouth shut while at the beach, but now I can't
.) Why do they have such bizarre ideas about using plastic items in the kitchen and using microwave ovens in general? OK, I get the hesitation about plastics. There has been a minor issue with the additives used in plastic items to achieve high flexibility. I say “minor” because it was never established that these plasticizers were actually a threat to health or safety. However, it was easy to eliminate their use, and plastics sold today lack them. But this younger generation has taken this further, to the extreme that all plastics are evil. To be specific, I am referring to a nephew who refused to drink coffee if it was made with a filter holder that was plastic. He made an embarrassing spectacle of himself by making his own cup of coffee with a filter holder (ceramic) that he had brought with him.
But wait, there’s more. Microwave ovens are apparently also evil! And it doesn’t matter if you use a container made of glass instead of plastic to heat water in the microwave! Apparently, the microwaves themselves impart a poisonous quality to water. This baffles me completely. I wonder if this flawed thinking is similar to the extremely misguided idea that vaccinations are dangerous and should be avoided. I don’t want to get too deep with this (as I once did about the vaccine deniers), but what’s the deal with shunning microwave ovens
?
