I've never bothered with shaving cream, preferring good old soap and water simply because it's cheaper and I never run out of it, but my
daughter, who is approaching teenhood with a vengeance, has discovered the wonders of spending my money. This means she's working her way with ruthless determination through the entire personal products section of the
drug stores, from shampoo to foot cream and everything in between. None of these come cheap, but she doesn't mind forking out big bucks for potions of every shape and form, including multiple cans of pink
and purple gel that morph into shaving cream. Growing up, there was only one color: white. That was it. And I rarely used it. What I did use was my father's razor. In my teenage habit of procrastinating, I often
found myself preparing to go to school or the Teen Club weekly dances with stubbly legs. Since that wouldn't do in those days of micro mini-skirts, I would take my father's razor from the shelf where he kept his shaving
gear, use it, dry it and put it back where I found it. I never could figure out how he knew I'd had it, but he sure did get a lot of mileage out of that styptic pencil while I was living at home.
But razors
aren't the problem here. It's the shaving cream we're having trouble keeping on the premises. Almost every week my daughter has complained she needs another can of shaving cream.
I must admit to confusion. How,
I'd like to know, could one little girl (well, not so little anymore, I'll grant you that) use so much shaving cream? In fact, use as much shaving cream as I have used in my entire life in the space of three months? The
truth reared its ugly head not too long ago.
We were in the car, returning from an evening meal, when I advised my off-spring I had replenished her supply of shaving cream that day.
"Please make it last, would you mind?" I beseeched her.
"I will, if you'll keep him out of it," she said, jerking her thumb at her brother.
Now, I'll admit, that did intrigue me. What on earth, I
wondered aloud, could a nine-year-old who didn't even have peach fuzz find to do with a can of shaving cream? The answer is, apparently, quite a lot.
"I sprayed some on my arms," my son told me.
"And?"
"And I shaved them," he said. I asked him how his recently shaved arms turned out and he told me that they, "Looked funny and were prickly." I was satisfied with his explanation, but my daughter wasn't finished.
"Ask him about the other stuff, Mom."
"Other stuff?"
"Yeah, when he takes his toys in the bathtub and uses my shaving cream to have battles." I looked at my son.
"You have battles with shaving cream?"
"I pretend I'm shooting at the good guys."
"You're shooting cans of shaving cream at the good guys?"
He nodded.
"I pretend it's acid and it
comes out of the monster's eyes and shoots the good guys."
"See, Mom? And you don't even want to know what he's been doing to my Barbies!" My daughter said, her voice rife with indignation.
"OK, I'll bite. What torture are you putting Barbie through?"
"She's a princess, Mom, and the good guys have to save her from the monster."
"Well, that's not so bad," I said.
"Too bad the
good guys get killed before they can rescue her," he said shaking his head.
"Barbie has a bad day?" I asked.
"She gets shaving creamed to death," my daughter said, finishing the saga.
I wonder if
the Defense Department knows about this? I'd tell them, but I'm afraid they'll start arming Marines and soldiers with pink shaving gel and something tells me they wouldn't like it very much.
Especially the Green Berets.
