The Knife Guy

There are two things I would have you know:

#1) This is my 100th blog entry! Wooooo! Wooooo! Party!

#2) I am writing this while participating in an overnight study for drowsy driving. I will be staying up overnight and randomly driving a very expensive and complex driving simulator in order to aid scientists in understanding the effects of driving while not fully rested. I have been fitted with an EEG (a connected series of sensors which have been glued to my head to monitor my brain waves) and am already feeling tired even though it's only 8:30. Give me a break, I got up at 6 am and worked 10 grueling, busy, understaffed hours at the pawn shop. I have a feeling I am going to fail one my drives. I kind of hope I do. I've even contemplated running over a child on purpose. It makes me wonder if the simulator will shake like a real car would if you hit someone or something, or multiple someones or somethings. Buahahaha.
And now on my official 100th blog entry! Today, I wish to tell you about a frequent customer who will be henceforth be referred to as The Knife Guy. He is a short man with coke-bottle glasses. Whenever he comes in, he always immediately heads towards the knife section of the store. He peers through the glass and asks if we have any new knives we will be putting out soon. He's always looking for something new and is in at least two times a week. He's a nice enough guy, but his zeal for weaponry is a little disconcerting. And then there is the odd fact that he is always wearing these wrist braces on each wrist. It just adds to the air of strangeness.

The other day, I was showing The Knife Guy--surprise--a knife from our knife case. He handled the knife and then informed me that it wouldn't work because it didn't fit into the area between his thumb and pointer finger, which was rigid due to the hard-shelled brace he wore.

Feeling brave, and a bit rebellious as reckless since I only had a few days of employment at the pawn shop ahead of me, I asked The Knife Guy what had happened to his wrists. He didn't seem put off by it at all and responded that he had obtained his injuries while working at a hospital while applying anesthesia to a patient. According to him, the anesthesia made the patient violent and she attacked him, biting one thumb and almost ripping it clean off and janking the other one out of its socket and twisting it around until the bone and tensions and nerves had all snapped. The braces, he told me, held his thumbs in a rigid position so he would be able to get some use out of them. Otherwise, his thumbs were useless.

A couple of days later, The Knife Guy came back into the store. He rarely finds any knives he wants to buy. He's looking for actual weapons and functional blades rather than the "wall hangers" that make up most of our knife merchandise. But, this time, he found a small sheathed machete that he wanted to purchase.

I ended up ringing up his purchase and was informed that he was buying the machete for his five year old nephew. I asked him if his nephew's parents would appreciate that, and he assured me that they would. It may have just been the pride of a loving uncle, but The Knife Guy said his nephew was a natural with guns and knives. Why, when he was four years old, I was told, this young lad shot a hole through four watermelons right in a row with some kind of low-powered firearm. The Knife Guy said he wanted to sharpen the blade and then let his nephew walk around the woods with his new machete.

Now, I may be wrong, but that seems like a bad idea.

It made me think of The Sword-Wielding Possum Slayer (see The Sword-Wielding Possum Slayer). It seems very obvious that The Knife Guy's nephew and this kid should be friends since they seem to have so much in common . . . inappropriate weaponry being given to them . . . being allowed to be unattended in dangerous situations . . . stupid adults destroying their lives . . .

On the other hand, I just watched Kick-Ass for the first time and I loved it. That little girl was so cute with her plethora of weapons and skills of mass killing. Maybe we need more children like that in the world and these two boys will be them. I see two possible options for the lives of these boys. Either they will become spunky and cool, yet restrained and mature, or they'll become serial killers. Only time will tell.