[Moderators (or experienced users): Please advise if there is a more appropriate spot on B&B for anecdotes such as this one. Thanks!]
The instrument pictured as my avatar wasn't really my first DE. My first DE was a device that looked an awful lot like this...
I was still in high school, senior year. I was using one of those awesome, new two-blade cartridges on myself in those days, which was sufficient and then some for the few, fine hairs I lovingly referred to as "whiskers." I had a part-time job as a hospital orderly, and those blue monsters were the standard-issue weapon in the war on surgical-site-infections. In 1978, at the tender age of 17, the seasoned R.N. handed me a prep-kit which contained a razor, a packet of liquid soap, and a synthetic foam sponge about 2.5 inches square packed in a square bowl meat to hold water. That, and some towels, comprised the entire equipage for the project. My education for the procedure consisted entirely of the surgeon's shave-order: "naval to knees, all the way around," with the coda, "Be careful now... DON'T nick him!"
Ladies and gentlemen, please activate your imaginations for a moment. There's some important real estate in that tract, isn't there? Here's a skinny, smooth-faced kid coming at you -- somewhat nervously -- with one of those blue monsters... what could possibly go wrong?
The good news is that I didn't cut the man. I later found out that surgeons really, really hate it when you do, and we all know which direction shi... wrath flows. The bad news was that I wound up taking about five times as long to do the prep as it should have taken, and I didn't do that great a job of it, especially all the little fine hairs. When the R.N. came in to inspect, she snatched up that razor and angrily cleaned up what I had left, with deftness born of long experience. Zip, zip, zip, and in about two minutes, this guy was done.
Back at the nurses station, I got a proper chewing out for taking so long and doing it so poorly... "I don't know what the world's coming to... back when I started we used STRAIGHT razors..."
After about five minutes of that, pride stinging and back aching from being bent over so long, I had to go prep my second patient.
The instrument pictured as my avatar wasn't really my first DE. My first DE was a device that looked an awful lot like this...
I was still in high school, senior year. I was using one of those awesome, new two-blade cartridges on myself in those days, which was sufficient and then some for the few, fine hairs I lovingly referred to as "whiskers." I had a part-time job as a hospital orderly, and those blue monsters were the standard-issue weapon in the war on surgical-site-infections. In 1978, at the tender age of 17, the seasoned R.N. handed me a prep-kit which contained a razor, a packet of liquid soap, and a synthetic foam sponge about 2.5 inches square packed in a square bowl meat to hold water. That, and some towels, comprised the entire equipage for the project. My education for the procedure consisted entirely of the surgeon's shave-order: "naval to knees, all the way around," with the coda, "Be careful now... DON'T nick him!"
Ladies and gentlemen, please activate your imaginations for a moment. There's some important real estate in that tract, isn't there? Here's a skinny, smooth-faced kid coming at you -- somewhat nervously -- with one of those blue monsters... what could possibly go wrong?
The good news is that I didn't cut the man. I later found out that surgeons really, really hate it when you do, and we all know which direction shi... wrath flows. The bad news was that I wound up taking about five times as long to do the prep as it should have taken, and I didn't do that great a job of it, especially all the little fine hairs. When the R.N. came in to inspect, she snatched up that razor and angrily cleaned up what I had left, with deftness born of long experience. Zip, zip, zip, and in about two minutes, this guy was done.
Back at the nurses station, I got a proper chewing out for taking so long and doing it so poorly... "I don't know what the world's coming to... back when I started we used STRAIGHT razors..."
After about five minutes of that, pride stinging and back aching from being bent over so long, I had to go prep my second patient.
