I received this E-mail from Brunhilda in Essen, Germany.

Dear Dr Spendur:

My husband Oscar has been shaving with a straight razor now for 5 years. He owns three razors and has two stones, (or I guess you call them that) to keep his razors sharp. We both work very long hours and I relish the time we spend together and I was never really all that excited about the time he spends sharpening his razors. I think he finds these rocks prettier than me. I really don’t understand why he can’t use an electric razor like all the other normal men do.

Recently, he joined your shaving site and he has become obsessed with sharpening his razors. First I saw packages coming from all over the world containing rocks. He says he must have them, he can’t help himself. He first bought a fancy magnifier to see his razors with and then he bought a fancy stereo-microscope because he says he can’t see enough detail. The other day I got a letter from our national lab. Apparently he is renting time on an electron microscope. When I confronted him he lied to me and said he had a secret contract with the Government to study particle sizes. My husband is a taxi driver. Now he is hearing voices in his head telling him his razors aren’t sharp enough and he must obey the voices. Only by using this microscope will he be able to see these gremlins that are stealing the keenness from his blades.

Last month I heard him on the phone with Günter at the quarry and he was arguing with him about the quality of the rocks and he now says he must personally go and visit the Quarry to hand select these rocks. Now he has informed me for our vacation instead of visiting my Mother in Bavaria we will be going to Outer Mongolia where he will set up a base camp and he will go prospecting for the proper hone.

I don’t understand what is happening to him. Wherever we go he always stares at the ground. I asked him why and he says he doesn’t want to miss any possible hones in the ground. Last Saturday we had a romantic walk next to the Rhine River and he wasn’t looking where he was walking and he fell in.

Please help me. Oh what’s that noise outside in the backyard? Why there is a huge earthmover turning over our back yard. Please…not my hop plants.

Dear Brunhilda:

I am glad you wrote to me. I am here to help.

The thoroughly modern man is self assured and confident in himself and uses an electric razor to accomplish the unpleasant experience of removing ones facial hair growth each day. There is nothing normal about a straight razor user.

Yes you have peaned the pin on the razor alright. These very sick men become so obsessed with their childish archaic boy toys they simply are not normal anymore. You see how he slowly becomes taken in by the slick sales pitch those nasty straight razor users use over and over again. These men begin to take on physical attributes. They start to squint and lean to one side and become obsessed with scars and their voices become deeper. Some develop a physiologic limp; I have seen it all before. There is even talk no other than Lucifer walks among them. If we do not act quickly he will disappear one day into the wilderness looking for hones never to return. The fact he has gone from one microscope to a larger one is evidence of his inadequacy as a man and thus he tries to compensate with “bigger equipment”. Men like this often time become anti social and the next time he visits the quarry he will be armed and the provocation will probably result in an untimely end to Günter. Please make sure there are no explosives on your property.

In this case I would say your husband has a severe case of Honeitis equimente where the attainment of more of these rocks is akin to a sexual experience. Have you ever noticed him fondling these stones or maybe washing them over and over or maybe he talks to them as if they were women. Please call 1-800-Ihatestraights. The treatment in this case would be to take Oscar to a lake and tie him full of hones and throw him in making him understand how the weight of his transgressions are simply killing him. He will either be reborn as a modern shaver or die as the tortured soul he is.

Good luck
Dr Spendur