Gillette Fusion Power Razor — Available Now

"Feels like the very first time."

Yes, the lyrics of a famous song but also an excellent pithy description of the guiding philosophy behind my bumbling approach to this thing called life.

For years I've known that Amazon often quietly starts selling things that don't officially go on sale until weeks later.

I always say to myself, next time some hot new product is announced, check Amazon before the official release day to see if you can get it early.

Once again I'm asleep at the switch, this time with Gillette's new Fusion Power razor, five blades of vibrating shaving goodness

about to burst into America's consciousness tomorrrow with the company's Super Bowl commercials.

I read yesterday that each second of Super Bowl commercial time costs — are you ready for this? — $83,333.33.

Anyway, this afternoon it occurred to me that perhaps Amazon's already taking pre–orders for the Fusion so I wandered over there, to the Health & Personal Care section.

Guess what?

Not only are they selling these new razors right now — I just ordered mine, for $9.57, to be delivered free (Amazon Prime and all) on Wednesday, February 8 — but they've been doing so for the past two weeks.

Stores in Charlottesville almost certainly won't have them on the shelves next week, either because we're such a small market or because they've already sold out.

But get this: if I hadn't been asleep at the switch, I could've been shaving with mine all last week, like one Andrew Mogendorff of Minneapolis, Minnesota who, in his laudatory January 31 review on Amazon — the first one up reporting on the Fusion experience (as it were) — wrote that he'd received his razor last Monday, January 30.

To paraphrase the Everly Brothers, "When Will I Wake Up?"