Why you should always carry a knife with you

Perhaps many of us have our own "gentleman's set" of what we take with us when we leave home. This set of things will likely change depending on how far you go. If this is a trip to the store for yogurt, then you can do without a phone, but if you are going to visit or to work, then you probably take a bag with you, which contains everything you need, from money and documents to pepper spray and some kind of deodorant.

You will almost certainly have something in your bag to read, and a ton of unnecessary junk with an eye on the end of the world. However, with all the abundance of things, it is quite rare in a men's or women's bag to find one of the oldest artifacts of the Paleolithic - a knife, which can serve as both a tool and a weapon.

A dagger is good for someone who has it, and bad for someone who does not have it at the right time.

Abdullah c / f "White Sun of the Desert"

One warm September day during the dashing 90s, my brother and I went to the grocery store. On the way back, right at the exit from the underpass, we were "met" by two smallish third-graders. And although I was in the seventh grade, which means I was bigger and stronger, and besides, I had already been in hand-to-hand combat for two weeks, the glint of the blade in the hand of one of the young bandits somehow immediately bound me. Paralyzed by fear, my brother and I, of course, gave all the remaining money to the punks and trudged home in tears.

Since then, apart from once, when I brought a butterfly to school to protect myself from my unbelted classmates, I forgot about knives, and in my pocket I carried a modest yavara - a wooden lifesaver, something like a legal brass knuckle. I must say that I was very frightened by the opportunity to ring up somewhere in the police, because I knew that, if they wanted, they could even cling to a piece of wood.

So I would have lived in my limited world, if at a new job I had not met a colleague who was fond of knives. I was surprised to find that he always had a knife with him. An even bigger surprise for me was that our project manager - smart, vegan and yogi rolled into one - also walks with a jackknife. I decided to join their knife club and bought myself a high-quality Chinese model, although at first the daily carrying of a knife caused conflicting feelings in me. However, over time, I got so used to my knife that I practically stopped going outside without it. It turned out that a knife is a very useful handy tool that you get used to quickly, as well as to everything good.

How can a knife be useful?

The knife is cutlery … You come to a restaurant, and there are table knives with which you need to saw this miserable piece of solid meat for half an hour. Or worse, disposable plastic knives. To use such devices is not to respect yourself. In such cases, your personal sharpened knife will be very useful.
The knife is opener … When you have a knife at hand, you are able to open any can / bottle / box in a matter of seconds.
The knife is scissors … Of course, it is unlikely that you will be able to cut your favorite dog with a knife, but cutting paper, cloth or cutting off a piece of electrical tape is easy.
The knife is screwdriver … Of course, only a good screwdriver can be better than a screwdriver. But if you are pressed by need, and there is nothing next to you, your way out is a knife, which, with proper luck, can be used to unscrew both a slotted screw and a "cross".
The knife is sharpener … No, this is even better than a sharpener, because with a knife you can sharpen a pencil at your discretion, while an ordinary sharpener, although it gives an equally even cut on wood, but sins with a blunt lead point.
The knife is carpentry tool. You can even make a new knife out of a knife! True, made of wood.
The knife is razor … It happens that in the morning, having hastily shaved and arrived at the office, you find a treacherous hair sticking out somewhere on your cheek. Who takes a razor with him to work? And if you have a sharp knife at hand, then shaving is not a problem.
The knife is a spear … By tying a knife to the end of a stick, you can make a spear, with which Rambo, sitting on a paleo diet, hunted wild boars when he was partisan in the forest near the city of Hope.
The knife is emergency hammer … The one that for some reason is never at hand when you need to break the glass in a burning or sinking bus. The weight of the knife and its solid handle have the excellent qualities of an emergency hammer. Some knife models even have a pre-installed glass breaker at the end of the handle, which allows you to break glass with minimal effort.
The knife is nuclear weapon … Not literally, of course. But as a weapon of "containment" - very even. If everyone carried knives with them, there would be much more mutual respect, courtesy and harmony in society.
The knife is brass knuckles … Even when folded, the knife can play a decisive role in street confrontation. A folded knife enclosed in a fist not only adds mass to the blow, but also, like javara, allows you to use the back and front of the handle for punching and crushing blows.
The knife is steel arms … If you learn to fight with a knife and have the necessary psychological preparation, your chances in street fights increase dramatically. Even just the foreseeable presence of a knife in your pocket will help potential bandits to draw the correct conclusion that it is better not to mess with you. What if you are a knife cutter?

Of course, unlike lipstick or deodorant, it is advisable to position the knife so that it can be reached as quickly as possible - this is important for any kind of extreme situation, be it a fight or the need to cut someone's scarf, which began to suck in the escalator in the subway. Therefore, it may be that you have to sacrifice a "major" spot in one of your trouser pockets in order to house your knife there. For example, in order to carry a knife in my right pocket, I had to retrain to carry the phone in my left pocket and get used to working with the phone with my left hand. But now the knife is always at hand!

It would be interesting to know if you carry a knife or other weapon with you and how you feel about it.