This morning started out pretty routine, a cup of tea with the better half, then off to the local IKEA for a couple of unfinished wood snack tables for staining and varnishing for general TV room duty. Plus a couple bar stools for the kitchen breakfast counter.
Got the stuff, and while Karen was in line to pay for it, I went and got the Element to meet her by the front door. I pull up in the loading zone and park and open up the back tailgate and wait. Next to me is another car, a little Toyota with a young couple tying a couple flat boxes on the roof. Or trying to tie, I should say. IKEA has these dispencers with a large roll of white poly something twine for the purpase of tying things on cars. Attached to the dispencer is a cheap sissors, only in this case the sissors is missing. Some low life made off with them. The young guy is looking around, and then tries to saw through the tough twine with a key. I can't take it.
Of course I go over and offer to cut off the twine he needs. Very gratefull he's a very nice young man, and they had just got married a few weeks ago, and are still outfitting thier nest. He reels off a long length of the white stuff, and I take out my yellow peanut to cut it off. He looks at my pocket knife and utters a comment.
" Oh man, my grandfather had a yellow handle pocket knife just like that! Wow, your knife sure brings back memories. I guess they don;t make them like that anymore, how long have you carried that one?" he asked.
" About a year and a half, I bought a new one when I gave my old one to my grandson. " I tell him.
He stares at me for a moment, like not comprehending what I said.
"You're kidding, right? You mean they still make a pocket knife like my grandfather had?" he seems incredulous.
He starts to tell me how his grandad took him fishing when he was a kid, and how grandpa did everything with his little yellow handle pocket knife. I'm looking at the young guy with his new young wife, and I know at this point what I have to do. It's like some cosmic thing our niece is always talking about, called syncronicity or something like that. A guy named Carl Jung. When random circumstanses come together and point you in a direction you had not thought about. The young guy is talking away with a nostalgic voice about his grandpa, and how after he passed away nobody knew where his little yellow knife went to. Okay, I tell myself to just do it and flow with the vibes, as Bronwynn would put it.
I hand him the knife and tell him it's a wedding present. He's stunned, as is Karen who had come out with our stuff in the cart, and had been listening.
"Oh man, I can't take your knife! Like, its yours man." the young guys says.
"No, it's a wedding present, and I want you to take it, and when you have kids, take them fishing, and tell them about your grandfather."
The young man stuttered some, and told me he had to pay me for the knife.
"Okay, make it a quarter."
He looked confused, so I told him about the old superstition about a coin in return for a knife. A quarter was handed over, and he turned the knife over in his hand, opened the main blade and felt it. I warned him about it being very sharp, and it will probably cut him at some time so don't worry. It will just be the knife bonding with him. If he gets careless, the knife will nip him to remind him to give a bit of respect. I also told him the blade was CV and thats why it was a mottled blue color, and it needs to be wiped down once a day. He told me he recalled at how his grandpa would take out a bandana and clean his knife, and I told him his grandpa was somebody I'd have been friends with.
A car horn honked, and it was time for us to go our separate ways and get out of the way of others who were picking up furnature.
We all drove off, the young newlyweds in thier little Toyota Corolla with the roof rack, and a new knife in the husbands pocket. Maybe years from now, he'll be sitting on a river bank or lake shore, with a little boy who will looks somewhat like him. And a little boy will hear tales of fishing with a grandfather he'll come to know, even though they never met.
Got the stuff, and while Karen was in line to pay for it, I went and got the Element to meet her by the front door. I pull up in the loading zone and park and open up the back tailgate and wait. Next to me is another car, a little Toyota with a young couple tying a couple flat boxes on the roof. Or trying to tie, I should say. IKEA has these dispencers with a large roll of white poly something twine for the purpase of tying things on cars. Attached to the dispencer is a cheap sissors, only in this case the sissors is missing. Some low life made off with them. The young guy is looking around, and then tries to saw through the tough twine with a key. I can't take it.
Of course I go over and offer to cut off the twine he needs. Very gratefull he's a very nice young man, and they had just got married a few weeks ago, and are still outfitting thier nest. He reels off a long length of the white stuff, and I take out my yellow peanut to cut it off. He looks at my pocket knife and utters a comment.
" Oh man, my grandfather had a yellow handle pocket knife just like that! Wow, your knife sure brings back memories. I guess they don;t make them like that anymore, how long have you carried that one?" he asked.
" About a year and a half, I bought a new one when I gave my old one to my grandson. " I tell him.
He stares at me for a moment, like not comprehending what I said.
"You're kidding, right? You mean they still make a pocket knife like my grandfather had?" he seems incredulous.
He starts to tell me how his grandad took him fishing when he was a kid, and how grandpa did everything with his little yellow handle pocket knife. I'm looking at the young guy with his new young wife, and I know at this point what I have to do. It's like some cosmic thing our niece is always talking about, called syncronicity or something like that. A guy named Carl Jung. When random circumstanses come together and point you in a direction you had not thought about. The young guy is talking away with a nostalgic voice about his grandpa, and how after he passed away nobody knew where his little yellow knife went to. Okay, I tell myself to just do it and flow with the vibes, as Bronwynn would put it.
I hand him the knife and tell him it's a wedding present. He's stunned, as is Karen who had come out with our stuff in the cart, and had been listening.
"Oh man, I can't take your knife! Like, its yours man." the young guys says.
"No, it's a wedding present, and I want you to take it, and when you have kids, take them fishing, and tell them about your grandfather."
The young man stuttered some, and told me he had to pay me for the knife.
"Okay, make it a quarter."
He looked confused, so I told him about the old superstition about a coin in return for a knife. A quarter was handed over, and he turned the knife over in his hand, opened the main blade and felt it. I warned him about it being very sharp, and it will probably cut him at some time so don't worry. It will just be the knife bonding with him. If he gets careless, the knife will nip him to remind him to give a bit of respect. I also told him the blade was CV and thats why it was a mottled blue color, and it needs to be wiped down once a day. He told me he recalled at how his grandpa would take out a bandana and clean his knife, and I told him his grandpa was somebody I'd have been friends with.
A car horn honked, and it was time for us to go our separate ways and get out of the way of others who were picking up furnature.
We all drove off, the young newlyweds in thier little Toyota Corolla with the roof rack, and a new knife in the husbands pocket. Maybe years from now, he'll be sitting on a river bank or lake shore, with a little boy who will looks somewhat like him. And a little boy will hear tales of fishing with a grandfather he'll come to know, even though they never met.
)
