What is the most highly developed instrument in use today? My vote would go to the humble safety razor. You see, I grew up during the hay day of development when, it seemed, weekly came a new variety. So there was the old single sided blade with a back to it, the double sided blade, the single blade that you changed by inserting a probe like thing and pushing in a new blade, with the old one going out at the same time, there was, if I remember correctly, one in which the blades just were built in and sort of rotated into place, then we graduated to twin blade, twin blade with teflon strip, triple blade, and probably a lot of others. My wife tells me there is a new razor for women which contains the shaving soap and a lotion built in.
Each razor guarantees you will get the closest shave ever.
Well tonight I got to use the ultimate 'Gillette' brought back to me by my wife complete with five blades, plus a trimmer blade on the back. You see, I ran out of my twenty five cent single bladed bics which are about all that can be purchased here and had to use this monstrosity. It even came with a name - "Fusion" and probably an attitude.
Of course, with safety razors, the stakes are tremendous - everyone uses them and they are made to be disposable, so that everyone is continually buying more.
Well, after tearing my beautiful mug up with the new razor, I decided that, for one thing it is too damned heavy and cumbersome, I can't get replacement blades without a high cost, and I have been more than pleased with my cheapy bics. Ha!!!
Kind of like bikes, isn't it - they too get more complex, more cumbersome, heavier and more expensive - in a word, less fun to use.
Yep, back to my bic.