On a much smaller scale with the theme of "Being Prepared," this morning I stopped at a local 7-11 convenience store to get the Sunday paper. I entered the store and went over to the newsstand, there were about 8-9 people in line waiting to get their Sunday paper and two men in front of the line were wrestling with the bands on the stack of newspapers trying to break them free by pulling on them to free the stack of papers. Apparently the deliveryman was in a hurry and just dropped off several stacks of papers without opening them up and stocking the shelves. These two guys were unsuccessful in their attempts to free the paper from the bands, so one guy goes over to the clerk and asked for scissors to cut the bands. The clerk replied that he did not have any cutting implements (I guess they never heard of mans first tool), however the manager would be in shortly and he had a utility knife locked up in his desk drawer, and would cut the bands off when he got in. This whole situation was surreal and I needed to put a stop to it immediately. I excused myself and walked in front of the line, did not want to upset these helpless creatures. I very slowly pulled out my XM 18 and cut the bands from several stacks of newspapers with ease and little fanfare. I was thanked by several people in line and the clerk for coming to their mini crisis. One guy that was intently watching me cutting the bands (about 20 total) said to me after I was done that is quite a knife you have there! I thanked him, got my paper paid for it and left. Just like tribal times the leader with the knife or club reigns supreme!
While I was driving home I was thinking all my life I have carried a knife and more recently Hinderers and what I did in that store was so ordinary compared to what I have used a knife over my career. I'm so thankful that I was brought up on a farm and understood at a very early age the usefulness of a knife. Like with Maprik in that dome, if it did collapse he was prepared and probably would end up saving lives by utilizing his Hinderer. We on this Hinderer sub forum and Blade Forums understand the usefulness of knives thankfully, but unfortunately we walk among sheep!
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