What the H*** is wrong with people?

N

Northern Sod Breaker

New member
For the benefit of those who don't know I work for a cleaning contractor, cleaning up after flood and fire damage. This happened last week. I was on the job and the young lady I work with was fighting to get a stubborn thumb tack out of a wall so she could wash behind a poster. I saw what was happening. And pulled my Leatherman out of my belt pouch and proceeded to open it up. I went to grab this thumb tack with it and the young lady jumped back 2 feet. I said "What?" she said she thought I had a pocket kinfe. I said "What!?" She said she is scared of pocket knives? What the hell? I'd expect this down in the slums of Minneapolis but not here How can someone be scared of pocket knives. I can see being scared of firearms, that's not to say it's right, but I can see how they might come tothat fear. Pocket knives is kind of taking it to the extreme. And the things is Everybody at the shop knows I carry a leather man and at least one backup knife AT ALL TIMES, The boss has no problems with it and neither does anyone else at the shop. Apearently no one told her.
 
Assuming that she hasn't been traumatized by someone (including herself) using a knife, perhaps she's just got a fear to being cut.

I know many people who have just such a fear and knives make them nervous.
 
I grew up in a time and place where carrying pocketknives was just normal. Everyone seemed to carry one. Even my grandmother had one in her purse. Now everyone I work with thinks I'm weird because I carry a full size leatherman, a leatherman 301c pocketknife and a leatherman micra multitool every day.

(think how they'd feel if they knew about the gun ;))
 
Goes hand in hand with the (no offense) girl behind the gun counter at my closest bass pro shop calling someone else to show me a new remington rifle because she said "I don't touch those things" :barf:

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I almost just left.
 
I grew up in a time and place where carrying pocketknives was just normal.
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Me too. I was born in 1984 in Southern California. Everyone I knew had some sort of pocket knife. I moved to Alabama when I was 10 or 11, and found that not only everyone I knew, but EVERYONE carried a knife, or kept one to hand. Weird the way some people are.
 
That's just too funny. How was she hired?
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I think she was pulled from the walmart anti gun employee reject pile...

see she knew what a remington was (unlike the empolyees that make it into the prestige of the wal mart sporting goods section) but she also knew that she wasn't going to touch it.
 
I've carried a pocket knife since cub scouts in 5th grade. Even to school, before the advent of zero tolerance laws of course. I'm soon to be 51 and still carry a pocket knife. I'm the most popular person in the room at Christmas time when the yute's get a box that's been taped or some bubble packaging.

We've taught all of our cub scouts to handle pocket knives. No big deal. Some people are virtually scared of their own shadow it seems. Now, if this girl had been attacked or cut badly with a knife, maybe I could understand, but there's professional help out there too. It's silly to be scared of a pocket knife, in and of itself.

Of course, some people won't bait a hook with an earthworm or a nightcrawler either. Go figure. :p
 
see she knew what a remington was (unlike the empolyees that make it into the prestige of the wal mart sporting goods section) but she also knew that she wasn't going to touch it.

This is probably her favorite nursery rhyme:

Guns are icky, this I know,
I won't touch one, don't ya know.
I might get warts, I might get ill,
liberals say they're made to kill.

Smart alec rural kid to city kid; "have you ever shot a gun?".
City kid: "Yes, I shot a gun once".
Rural kid:"Did ya kill it?"
 
Ha. A courier refused to even walk in the gunshop to make her delivery.

Occasionally you come across those types up here, not often though.
 
I work out doors and have major contact daily with european tourists. Especially the english.

They ask me if I have something to cut the plastic ties on their beach toys.

I pull out a nice little stainless spyderco a friend gave me, complete with serrated blade.

I like watching their eyes pop out when they see it.

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Not in my country, mate."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you should see what I got at home.":)
 
It is all part of what's wrong with the state of affairs today. When I was in high school (early 1990s), I carried knives to school. One was a Swiss Army Knife that I used to all manner of stuff- I was on the stage crew, so I fixed a lot of gear with it. The other was a 5" fixed blade Buck that hung out on my belt for any serious cutting I would have to do. I kept them both sharp- the Buck could've doubled as a razor- and carried them in school everyday.
Teachers, fellow students, the cafeteria workers and even one of the janitors had all, at one time or another, asked to borrow one of my knives for something. They were tools that I used on an almost daily basis- both in and out of class. Everybody knew I them, everybody trusted me with them, and nobody said a word about it.
Fast forward to last year, and I was home on leave. I stopped by my old high school to show a manuscript for a novel to my English Comp teacher. The school had ALL the doors locked with a metal detector on EACH one. You had to buzz in to the main office (and be recorded on camera) just to ask to speak to a teacher after school. Talk about a Whiskey Tango Fox moment...
 
It's crazy. I work for a large international trucking company that bans all pocket knives with blades longer than two inches. Some over anxious managers have "cut to the chase" and banned all pocket knives, regardless of blade length.

I carry a pocket knife daily and once shared my office with our HR manager. One day, leaning back in my chair, my knife shifted and when I got up, the knife fell out of my pocket. The HR manager saw it and said, in a straight face "You have dropped your WEAPON." I picked it up, looked at her and said "It's a pocket knife, it is NOT A WEAPON." Although it might have had a 2.5" blade on it, I spent the rest of the day waiting for the local SWAT team to kick down the door.
 
There is a mental correlation between banned/illegal and dangerous/frightening. This correlation is magnified in the minds of the emotional.
 
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