Why Carry a Pocket Knife?

Sometimes people ask me if it’s really necessary to carry a pocket knife like I do. This is rare, though, as most of the people I know either carry, are going to carry, or know why to carry a “pocket” knife (one carries a Marine fighting knife). They all have various reasons. The one that comes to everyone’s mind for some reason is self defense. Why, I don’t know, as you’re carrying something every day for something that’ll hopefully never happen. Not that I would say carrying something for self defense is a bad idea (pepper spray, gun, etc), it’s just that with something as useful as a knife to say “It’s for self defense” seems cheap to me, like, I have no other way to justify carrying a “weapon”. A knife isn’t a weapon, it’s a tool, and a great tool, if a slightly scary one (that’s what my mom thinks).

Yeah, that's kinda scary

Yeah, that’s kinda scary

I carry a knife for the same reason I carry a multi-tool (which has another knife): because it’s super useful for opening boxes, letters, cutting tape to fix things, removing splinters (yes, you can still get those in the modern age), cutting things to fix things, untying things (as long as you don’t want the twine), and scaring people who don’t understand why you want a 3.5inch piece of sharp metal in your pocket and think that no one is responsible enough to carry anything that may at any point be possibly used to harm someone.

I’ve been carrying a knife now for years, ever since I left school, because for some reason they won’t let you have pen knives in school. And it’s been super handy. Now I haven’t needed it every day. Sometime I don’t even use it in a week. But just like the fact that you’ll sometimes need a bottle opener to open a bottle, sometimes you’ll need to open a package, and I’ll have my knife to do it. (And I’ll have it to stab the guy assaulting me).