The Public Perception of Personal Knife Usage......A Cautionary Tale

[Michel Droz]

Hello! In the 70s and the 80s I lived in the Philippines, Thailand, and the Ivory Coast. On the Swissair flight back to Switzerland and back home a stewardess would trundle a small cart doen the aisles and sell Swissair "souvenirs". Silk scarves, tie clips, chocolate, etc. and Victorinox knives. Of course any passenger who bought one would immedietly unbox their purchase to play with their new knife.......

 

[Boombats]

So this thread about something that happened 20 years ago has Sheeple, Kool-Aid, a softball swing at what Woke means, and a knife with an American Flag on it as a totem for supposedly warding off Snowflakes... Political Forum is that-a-way, gentlemen Also, what the hell does this have to do with Multi-Tools? This forum is for nerding out about the number of flathead screwdrivers that come on a Leatherman (too damn many, I say!)

But I'll bite. People can unreasonable. About anything. That lady may have gone off the deepend about your knife that day, a few weeks later may have an issue with a man in a turban in the same seat. People don't need political connotation to get spun up over stupid things.. I don't mean to be cranky, but it really irks me when a broad brush is used to paint a black and white, us-them, perspective.

I have had people in salt of the earth Indiana give me funny looks for using a 3.75" fixed blade at work...don't care. I'm the owner I have had people comment on the quality of an 18" khukuri lashed to my kilt while on a hike. I used a scary 4 layer SAK out in the open while in knife-fearing Europe (Ireland to be exact) without an eyebrow raised as I clipped the tag off my wife's new shawl with the scissors.

Life if conflict. It is an ebb and flow of meetings where disagreements will happen. Some will just be terse looks, some will be actual words. The only way to remotely change another person's perception is to have a positive impact in a situation they expected a negative one. That may be showing them how helpful a tool or knife can be in day to day life. It may just being overly nice and polite to show non knife folks that we aren't psychopaths looking for something to stab. Ya know, people just behaving like their mama taught them.

Maybe it's my naivety as a geriatric/proto millennial where at 40 I hope to be young enough not to simply retreat into my comfort zone as to what is "right" without thinking about it first, but old enough to not really give a damn what others think about my opinions? That woman was off her rocker, yes. Lots of people who don't carry a knife or tool don't "get it" until they find themselves needing one, yes. The world is going to hell in a hand basket because of THIS? Not a chance.

Well fing said, Steely_Gunz.