This one requires a little backstory.

I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror yesterday evening, preparing to shave my upper beard (you know, the one that goes around the top of the head rather than the bottom), and the can of shaving cream was on its last legs. Anyone who uses store-bought shaving cream—as opposed to shaving cream preserves you can yourself at home, I suppose—knows the sound of a can about to slough its mortal coil: that signature”CHHHHHHRRAAAA-A-A-A-A-CKKKKK” noise, like a barista trying to steam-froth a dog turd. This wretched, phlegmy clamor is invariably accompanied by a stuttering and popping expulsion of foam, sometimes in many different directions. Come to think of it, the whole experience is like some bizarr surfactant-centric analogue to a bad case of the green apple splatters.

(Okay, that grossed out even me. I promise there will be no more poop references in this post. Pinky swear.)

A-a-aaanyway, there I was with my handful of foam, preparing to slather it on, when it occurred to me to wonder: why is it that the thickest, most luxuriously rich shaving cream comes from the absolute dregs, that very last gasp of the can? Without question, that has been the case for every can of shaving cream I have ever operated.

It then occurred to me that, given that I was fortunate enough to be living in the free-falling apogee of the Information Age, I could go and look it up on the prestigious Interwebs. Ask.com, howstuffworks.com, shavingcreamfacts.com (stunningly, this last domain name is not yet taken)….there must be a multitude of legitimate online sources for just this sort of shaving-cream-related data.

On the other hand (and I very much doubt that I am the first person to make this observation) just because you can look something up on the Web, does not necessarily mean that you should. Information—and more to the point, information gleaned online—is like a Dorito for your mind. Three might be a tasty munch, fifteen will make a satisfying snack. But indulgence begets indulgence, and by the time you’ve gorged yourself on dozens (or hundreds) of seemingly innocuous info-krill strained from the stream-of-consciousness-turned-ocean that is the World Wide Web, you’re suffering from the intellectual equivalent of bloat, diabetes, gout, heart disease and eventual stroke. Also you have nacho cheese dust all over your brain.

All of which is to say that some questions are better left unanswered, because the very act of pursuing enlightenment will likely leave you dumber and more slow-witted than you were before.

Such an inquest shall heretorfore be known as a retardical question.