While walking through the park last Sunday afternoon on a casual date with a young woman I recently met, I finally found my match in the weirdness department. Being Sunday, I opted for the ball cap in lieu of a shower and exercised my one-day-option of freedom from shaving my mug. I thought nothing of it. Then came the question.

"What kind of razor do you use?" she asked.

In two seconds the entire 700 yottabytes of my brain were scanned for witty answers and amusing comments. Wait a minute; what's a yottabyte you ask? It's a colossal amount of bytes (information), in computer terms. If you were on a 56K modem and you wanted to download a 1 yottabyte file, it would take you over 5 trillion years.

Anyway, the 1000+ books I've read, and the 20 years of education gleaned from American schools and Universities - all of it was put to the test right here, right now. Every "page view" on the Internet - all 9 million of 'em - every ounce of humor I've absorbed from classic NBC sitcoms and 1970's Steve Martin Standup Routines, all of it can now be spearheaded to fabulous perfection and delivered to this young beauty in an effort to tantalize and pique interest in me! Like a peacock proudly spreading his plumage, I delivered the Pulitzer-Prize-winning answer from the recesses of my over-active imagination that fuels my desire to live:

"Uh, I didn't shave today," I said, scratching my cheek to indicate so.

A remarkable piece of speech, eh?

"I can see that," she said, "but when you do shave, what do you use?"

"I use a, uh, Gillette thing," I said, making a "T motion" with my fingers to further expound on the brilliant fact-delivery.

"Is it the Sensor Excel?" she asked, with wide-open eyes.

I wasn't sure where she was going with this and I had no idea if I would pass or fail this apparent test. It was time to put the Pulitzer-delivery machine back into action:

"Yeah. Something like that."

Then she exhaled a sorrowful sigh and I realized that I'd just received a ZERO on that exam.

Turns out that she's mildly superstitious (or maybe she just loves bizarre facts like I do) and her history with guys who use the Gillette Sensor Excel is a war-torn saga that begins with lots of mayhem and shrieking, culminates in fighting, and eventually ends in catastrophe.

While she made it clear that she isn't sentencing our "relationship" to the ominous doom of the Sensor Excel Men of Past, it felt as if she just drew half a slash through my name in the back of her mind. The other half will now be more easily drawn with the slightest slip-up, since I use that stupid razor, striking a complete, elongated, angry "X" right through "Greg."
On the way home from the park, I called the Gillette Company to ask them how many people in the United States use the Sensor Excel. I was thinking that this could be pure mathematics and coincidence if 75% of the nation uses that face-scraper. Gillette wasn't home, or they weren't answering the phone on Sunday.

So I stopped at the drug store and picked up a seven different brands of razors, blades and other assorted shaving materials. Cost: $38.00. If this phenomenon is a mathematics thing, I'm skewing the data right now. She just might be worth it.

No point in trying to analyze it - I just wanted to pass the goods along to you, gentle reader. Think of this column as my little yard sale - just like everyone else does when they spring clean their attic.

There are plenty of guys who have started their own liquor business and attached their names to it. Name five. I’ll get you started with one: Ron Bacardi.