Posting some knives to my bro , In the time I took them out of the plastic carry bag I took them to the Post Office in and slipping them in the envelope , a lady spotted me , called her kids that were running riot back to her and whispered loudly to everyone nearby "He has a bloody great knife there , a couple of them , he just stuck them in that envelope"
I just stared at her for a few seconds then grinned ( that scares even my wife when I do that ) , she took her kids and left muttering about calling cops and maniacs on the loose
the Post master gave me some kidding about being a maniac , but that was all .
thats one kind of less than enthusastic person about knives , I guess I didnt help her any either
another time I got stopped on the Nulabor Plain , between fuel stations , literaly the midle of no-where , to be breath tested for drink driving by a cop , after the breath test and some chat with a suprisingly human cop , he went back to Copper mode when he spotted the knife pouch on my hip his hand dropped un-nervingly close to his gun and he asked "Is that a knife? , what ado you want that for ?" then he remembered where he was , and relaxed somewhat , but that bit of friendly human nature was gone from the cop after that ... FWIW , it was a full 1/2 hour we were stopped , and the cop had been the only other vehicle on the road we saw that morning , before another car went past , the cop left to chase it down and breath test the driver ...
thats another less than enthusiastic guy about knives , too long dealing with city scum I reckon ..
My bro warned me when I hit Perth "For gods sake , get that bloody knife off your belt , youll get into sh*t wearing that around here"
I am converting him slowly , he carries a knife daily now , and has them in his towtruck glovebox , door pocket , carries a few to sell to his mates even now .
He is a knife convert , one of a growing number I have made
I have noticed over the last few years since I been making and importing / selling , I get a fair number of knives that are a bit too blunt or unevenly ground or need minor work to make acceptable , I usualy go to town on them and sharpen them up to shaving sharp and give them to people .
A fair number of people I give knives to havent actualy ever had one before , or at least not since they began school anyway .These folk have even been anti knife type people , I just never knew , and Im not the kinda guy people feel comfortable about returning a gift to .
The things that came back to me from both the people I gave the knife to or their partners has regularly been that till they had their own knife and realised how useful it is , they never would have considered carrying a knife and only thought knives were weapons
I think a lot of anti knife folk are only like that cos they never had a knife to carry themselves , they dont know how handy it is to have a real little slicing tool .
I gave a little folding knife to an 80 yr old neighbor lady , she clips it to her bra strap and calls it her extra teeth ( helps her false ones ) before that I was a scary freak to her , I carried a knife , hell , she even has a cold steel canadian belt knife on her emergency bag now
Ya never too old to learn new stuff
there is a fair list of others , some have good reason to have issue about knives , my cousin ended his time here with a butcher knife stuck between his ribs , I am wary of pubs and crowds now , but I still like knives , others who are related are freaky about knives but are cool about pubs and crowds still
usualy what folk seem to equate to fear of knives is more fear of the unknown that fear of actual knives , I think anyway .very few folk who ask what do you want that for have ever had their own EDC
I have noticed one thing tho , when you give a knife as a gift to another person , they get a seris of expresions cross their face one imediate after another , first is "You realy trust me with this ?" followed close by "wow you must think a lot of me to give me this" with a few others thrown in as well
. I like watching a mans eyes when he gets a knife as a gift , especialy when he tries the blade , it is something that almost touches his soul for a moment ... unless I misjudge the guy and he slices his finger open doing something silly like running his finger along the edge , then its just plain eeewwwy I hate watching a guy doing that , blood goes all over the place .
. I find that most people asking "why do you have a knife?" can usually be satisfied with a smile and a "it's useful to have around, don't you think?" Even those who say, "Whoa, that's a big knife" can be placated with "no, not really, it's about the same size as [some kitchen knife]". There will always be people who don't understand or disagree, but that's always going to be the case with just about everything, and the best you can do is try and make them see where you're coming from in a non-threatening way. 
. I'm sure the fact that I'm a 125 lbs. girl who dresses like the city slicker I am, rather than a 180 lbs. guy in black leather with tattoos has something to do with the lack of fear as well. 
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