‘The never ending can of shave gel’

Several years ago I ran out of shaving cream and asked my wife to pick up another can at the grocery store. Unfortunately, the brand she bought was not my regular ‘tried and true’ brand.

I was apprehensive initially but to my surprise, I actually preferred the new brand. A smaller dollop went twice as far as the old stuff. I actually had to dial back my usage because it produced so much lather that I was wasting it. With a smaller serving each time in my palm, it took care of my beard better than ever. I quickly decided it was my new preference in shave gel products.

A significant amount of time passed. I would have needed 2 more cans of my old brand during that time period but the new can was only half gone! I was amazed as the months rolled by and the weight of the can felt virtually full. Even after a year or so, it still had a significant amount. As laughable as it sounded, I was actually impressed by a shave gel.

After what must have been more than two more years, the can did seem to be getting a little bit lighter. None-the-less, it’s smooth gel continued out whenever I coaxed it. I would also shave my head from time to time and even that significantly larger task failed to completely empty the boundless container.

As all good things come to pass, I believed the end was near for it. I could actually squeeze the sides in slightly from the lack of contents, or propellant inside.

As an act of loyalty, I requested another can of that amazing product for when the last dollop oozed out. The thing is, it continued to come out despite my predictions. The new can sat on my sink for months, waiting for its long suffering comrade to pass on. Still the shave gel came. The can felt empty for months but with a little exertion, it would dispense more. On more than one occasion, I was sure the dwindling stream was going to stop… but it kept rolling out slowly.

I became obsessed with seeing how many more shaves I could get. Each time I was sure was the last; and each time I was wrong. I could turn it upside down and squeeze the dispenser button with a little force and enough would come out to shave an elephant!

I began to theorize how it was possible to have an endless can of shaving cream gel. I feared only interstellar aliens could create a perpetually renewing product like the miracle I held in my hand! I imagined a tiny, microcosmic shaving cream factory inside, running night and day. Each time I used some, it generated new cream to fill the void of what I had just used up. It was the ONLY possible explanation.

Then I began to wonder what possible motive ‘they’ might have for such an odd thing. Then it dawned on me that an endless supply of shaving cream (and other things they were probably involved with) meant an entire industry would go out of business! With the collapse of various sabotaged economic industries, jobs would be lost. Chaos would erupt! Humans would annihilate each other and then with us conveniently out of the way, here ‘they’ would come to seize our planet. It was diabolically clever plan and I was determined to put a stop to it. I knew no one would believe such a bizarre idea but what other explanation could there be? Any alert I made to the public would be filled with skepticism and I would be branded unstable.

In the end (to spare my family from the grief of a spectacle), I just elected to toss that seemingly ’empty’ can (that still produced a single serving of shave gel every time I used it). You may doubt my fantastic story but if you happen to read a news story about a municipal landfill somewhere swelling to an astronomical size, you’ll know the truth. Somewhere, at the bottom of that landfill, those microscopic aliens are hating life since I foiled their plan for a terrestrial takeover!