Shopping Near The Via Dolorosa

Tales from Vacation:

All I know is, if you are on vacation in a faraway place in a foreign country where they notoriously and historically hate women, and you forgot a razor, you will attempt to buy one at some shady, heaven only knows where it came from place. A guy will sell it to you. This guy speaks perfect English till you engage him, then he will speak absolutely zero English and he will make it obvious that he hates you for no apparent reason. The newly acquired razor will weigh 4 lbs. with a stone handle. You will later learn that it is capable of actually shredding skin. Perhaps it was a plot to end your life from the very beginning?

To add insult to injury, back at the hotel, you will finally get around to do the currency conversion and realize you spent $50 US dollars on the murderous thing.

If you are like me, you will spend years rolling your eyes about it in slight annoyance and mild humor only to one day stumble across an exact replica on Etsy for $80 USD. You will finally feel a mild sense of victory over the little shredder till you read in the Etsy description that the stupid thing is interchangeable. INTERCHANGABLE!!! You could have changed out the hatchet for a less murderous razor at any time? Surely, the one I have is different? Surely, this can’t be the same thing?

Now my curiosity is knocking on the door of my contentment, I must know if the one I have is the same. I set out on a mission to find it, I am digging through stuff in closets and storage piles, and bags of travel stuff, and under the bathroom sink, and finally find it in the laundry room, obviously.

Low and behold, there it is, a tiny little set screw camouflaged in the detail of the 4lb. handle. No wonder the handle is so big. In addition to being able to hide a whole other razor in there I could probably charge rent to a whole host of fairies or at least the 7 dwarfs from Snow White’s forest…or maybe that genie in a bottle from the 70s.

Needless to say, I feel equal parts of victorious accomplishment and stupidity. In spite of all that I guess I will at least elevate the stone handled villain to a more respectful den of ill repute. Goodbye laundry room, hello narrow drawer in the guest bathroom where I will ignore it for another 15 years.

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