The Slot in the Cabinet

In the houses where I grew up, there was a slot in the back of the medicine cabinet in the bathrooms, made so that one might dispose of old razor blades. Yet I have never shaved with a razor that took such blades. My first razor used a band of metal that one wound on the a fresh stretch when the edge became dull. Not long after, I began to use razors with the two blades in a plastic cartridge, which I have used since. All are much too big for a slot made to receive a flat, unenclosed blade.

Yet a row ouse where we lived, built in the early 1980s, had that slot in the medicine cabinets, though by then most American men must have moved on to the bulkier razor cartridges. I was a little disappointed, when we painted the bathrooms, to find that there was no special receptacle for the blades to fall into; anything pushed through simply dropped to onto the ceiling below. I knew that it was unlikely anyone would ever have collected years of old razor blades, but there was something unsatisfying in thinking of them falling onto old plaster, dusty drywall, and construction debris.