Expensive Interests

What is it with me and my fascinations with expensive male pursuits?

First there's straight razors. Not only does a good straight razor (plus strop, plus stone) cost you a good $100 at a minimum, but if time is money then taking 15-20 minutes to shave in the morning is surely expensive. (Especially for non-morning people like me who hate to get out of bed before 7am, but must be at work by 8-8:30.) And yet, how can any red blooded man resist the sheer joy of scraping an incredibly sharp piece of metal next to his jugular vein? I'm sure I can't. When I do come up short of time I fall back on the old-fashioned double-edged safety razor. I keep trying to explain to my wife the thrill of using a badger hair brush and shaving soap, then scraping one-self with an insanely sharp and minimally safe implement, but somehow this joy does not transfer to a woman. I don't know if it's because they shave in the inelegant confines of the shower or what, but women do not seem to have the joy in shaving that we men can experience. (MrsDarwin interjects that she finds the concept of the straight razor cool, just not the concept of using it on herself.)

As if this were not enough self indulgence, I then find myself interested in English handmade shoes. (More here.) Now, in my defense I must say that I have not yet given in to this temptation, but it is certainly a strong one. (And given my habit of owning only one or two pairs at a time and wearing them into the ground, perhaps not a wholly impractical one.)

Then, as if that were not enough, Fidei Defensor gets me reading about surplus military rifles, which in turn has me thinking about all those other necessary things like a reloading bench and such.

All of which, of course, reminds me that I work more than one job and should bloody well stop fooling about and earn some more money to finance all these silly interests. Especially since I have informed MrsDarwin that as soon as she gets the current monkey-in-the-oven popped out she needs to start thinking about producing a Darwin heir so that I will have a son to tutor in the manly arts of shooting things, buying expensive shoes and scraping one's face with sharp metal objects.