Let me tell you a tale

I feel like a new man. I could probably get one looking as I do at the moment. Pretty sharp, let me tell you.

For those that see me relatively regularly, next time you see me you will note that I have removed my Olympic Bear-Swallower style beard. Cost me a pretty penny too.

Normally when you undertake such a crazy plan, you'd trim the beard down first and then go the razor. Bugger that, I thought to myself and immediately started hacking away at it with a ShickFX Quattro razor.

Three disposable razors later I am now smooth again. Three! At four blades a a head. That's twelve razors bluntened by my 5 weeks of growth. I'm not sure that I earned enough money in that time to cover the cost.

There are other things going on in my life at the moment which make me feel refreshed but as I'm under a blood oath not to talk about them... let me tell you a cautionary tale of stupidity. In this way I hope to educate you all about stupidity so that you can avoid my mistakes in your own lives.

It was a cold winter morning way back in my early teens. My itty bitty book light, the pride and joy of my toy collection at the time, had stopped responding to my "on" requests. Instead of suspecting the bulb (the most likely culprit), your intrepid hero decided to attack the problem armed with a screw-driver.

Now, I'm not a complete marshmallow. I know that you don't jam a screwdriver directly into an electrical device if it's plugged into the wall. So I calmly extracted the power cable and rested it gently between my teeth.

Go back and read that paragraph again. I kid you not, I placed a power cable IN MY MOUTH! But all is not over for our fearless protagonist. Because of the way these kinds of power cables was constructed I did not immediately meet my fate.

You see, this cable was constructed of two metal cylinders, one inside the other. They were separated by a thin sheet of, presumably, resistant plastic. So as long as my teeth and lips stayed away from the inner core, I would be ok.

Well, it would have been a good idea for someone to tell me that before I tried to adjust it's position with my tongue.

I woke up on the floor several minutes later with a killer headache, sore teeth and jaws, and a numb tongue.

I have never since owned an itty bitty book light. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that one remained. Sitting in my old room at my parents house. Just waiting.

Waiting.