AN OPEN LETTER TO THE RAZOR GENIUSES OF GILLETTE

The 21st Century Science Fiction Nuclear-Powered Interplanetary Face-Scraper.

Dear Gillette Razor Peeps:

I wanted to tell you how much I’m enjoying my brand-new Science Fiction Interplanetary Face-Scraping Device. So far, using your Deep Blue 21st Century Space Gel along with the Fusion Power Five-Blade Razor, I have had several extremely close, comfortable shaves.

Despite this, your sinister plan to convert me from a Mach 3 Turbo user to a Fusion Power Borg-Drone will not succeed. The replacement blades for the Mach 3 razor are already ridiculously expensive. Why, for an elusive incremental improvement in Shave Quality, would I want to pay yet more? I mean, the Fusion Power razor is real cool-looking and all that, but, geez, with blades going for what - three, four bucks a throw? - I could stick with my existing Shave-Gear and save enough money to buy Plan 9 from Outer Space on Blu-Ray DVD in just one month.

But that is all neither here nor there. The real reason for this Open Letter is to tell you that your Genius Marketers have stepped on their dicks. Before the inevitable flood of lawsuits comes rolling in, you should at least be afforded the privilege of a “Heads Up.”

Here’s the deal.

I purchased your Nuclear-Powered Science Fiction Razor for two reasons, and two reasons only. One is that I had received a coupon that was worth five whole dollars towards the purchase of your Insidious Shaving Device. The other was that your marketing boys had put together an attractive package deal: a razor, one battery, one Blade-Assemblage, a big can of Shave Gel, and – the topper! – a sleeve of “Gillette Champions” golf balls, all for the very reasonable price of $9.98. Which, with my coupon, was less than five bucks. At that price, I could justify using the razor until the blade got dull, then throwing the whole thing out...and I’d still have most of the can of shave gel left to use with my regular razor. Wotta bargain!

Now, about those golf balls.

Just so you know, I did not buy your attractively-packaged Face-Scraper because of the sleeve of golf balls that came with it. But I would think that, if you’re going to put your Corporate Brand on something - even something as far removed from your regular Field of Expertise as a golf ball - you want it to represent you well. I mean, you have a picture of Tiger frickin’ Woods on the box and all.

When I removed the sleeve of balls from the package, I noticed that they had a weird “feel” to them. Almost as though they were not real golf balls, but balls that had been worked over by the same Intergalactic Pod-Agency that did such a good job replacing real people with dead, unfeeling (but real-looking) Pod People in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Just for fun, I took a real golf ball, dropped it from shoulder height on a flat concrete surface. As expected, the ball hit the floor with a sharp “click” and rebounded, almost reaching the hand that dropped it.

Then I took a “Gillette Champions” ball and dropped it from shoulder height. Thud. It may have bounced as high as one inch, but it was hard to tell - because I was laughing so hard. It was as if someone had packed three identical dimpled, enwhitened rocks in that sleeve.

Anyone who actually tried to use one of those Freebie Balls would likely end up with a broken wrist.

Razor technology has come a long way since Gronk the Caveman first scraped his beard off with a clamshell back in the Middle Pleistocene. But I’m here to tell you, not even the whisky-saturated Scots who first conceived the game of golf back in windswept, boggy antiquity ever thought to try playing the game with fucking rocks.

So I’m just giving you a little advance notice. Any day now, the flood of lawsuits is likely to start, all from people who have injured themselves trying to use your stupid-ass golf balls for their (nominally) intended purpose. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

[Now - how about a case of real Titleists by way of thanking me?]