In the pages of Salon, where our progressive betters ruminate, Nicole Karlis ponders the latest fashionable anxiety. Specifically, “Stories of heartache, tears, stress and dehydration that people experienced after a forced separation from their water bottles.”
There was indeed one true statement in the item, she has an irrational fear of losing a water bottle.
Back in my journo days i occasionally noticed goofy habits about myself and others, then cranked out a piece on how weird we can get about trivial details. Easy work and off to the bar!
Now it’s all crisis all the time. Silly, and no fun for anybody.
I know after reading this there is nere a dry eye in the house.
I feel lost without my little pocket knife, an essential tool in any man’s life now perceived as a weapon.
It’s not one of those Swiss Army knives, is it? You know, an “assault” knife.
{snort}
I walk around with a Spyderco Harpy. I must be a frigging terrorist.
That’s not a knife . . .
“I understood that reference.”
Mine’s a Kershaw Ken Onion Blackout 1550. That tactical matte black automatically makes it an assault/terrorist weapon, I think. If you call your hawkbill blade a religious form (a la kukri or the kirpan), you can maybe get a pass. 🙂
I got the Blackout too but it carries tip down and it opens sort of automatically… not thanks, i like my private equipment in one piece. I carry a Benchmade Mini Griptilian, opens manually and carries tip up.
I’ve never had mine open unexpectedly, and I rather like the torsion spring action off my thumb…very satisfying click…and I love the balance on it, which is a big reason why I bought it. YMMV, of course, though it’s possible yours wasn’t set properly. Griptilian is nice-looking, though. How’s the balance on it?
I am with you on the ergonomics, Blackout melts in hand, just the right texture and feel. The lock on Kershaw… not sure about it. Mini Griptilian and its bigger brother can be had as no thrills quality knives or as fancy custom builds. The Mini fits average hand perfectly, might be a bit too tiny for a basketball player but for average size is perfect. Very robust, no blade play, easy to adjust screws, reversible clip, very solid lock. And of course you can order them in any blade shape, color etc. Custom ones are available in fancy steel but the regular ones come in 154CM steel (I just checked I don’t know these things) meaning they are easy to sharpen and hold the edge quite well. It has been my EDC for about a decade and am not looking to replace with anything else.
Agree 100%!
Born and raised in Canada I’ve always felt like a vilified outcast not able to carry a pistol in public. As a honest, law abiding, hard working taxpayer, I feel shunned and ostracized by the community of my birth that I’ve given so much to.
Well Paul, I feel your pain which is why I moved to Florida where I no longer feel like a vilified outcast; I just took a second to pat my SCCY CPX-2 which I appendix carry. Happiness is a warm gun and I love it so:)
I’ve carried one since my parents said I was old enough to be allowed one. It’s to the point that I feel almost naked without it on the times when I either forget it, or I can’t bring it with me.
An observation on the effectiveness of airport screening: I was running late for a flight out of YEG once…literally running…and so I forgot to take my tiny pocket knife out of my fanny pack (don’t judge). I didn’t realise I still had it on me until I got to my destination and moved it back to my pocket. This was after 9/11, but I can’t remember the exact date. I’ll allow that screening technology has improved since then, but the people operating it haven’t.
Ha! is that all. The day before a trip to San Francisco I went shooting.
When I was sitting on the plane, I felt something in my pocket. Not the one where I carry my keys etc., which gets emptied every time to go through the metal detector.
I reached in to see what it was.
Three 9mm rounds …
I donated them to a trash can outside the hotel just before leaving.
Ha. 🙂 I wonder if that trash can had its contents incinerated or buried….
Hey Philip, It happened to me too. I went shooting a week before a trip to Alberta, and had two 9 mil rounds not go bang. ( I reload, and yeah, I’m not perfect) So I put em in my jacket pocket and forgot all about them. At the YVR (Vancouver) screening, they seemed to be taking an awful long time to “Process” my stuff! A middle aged east Indian male screener kept shifting his eyes away each time I looked at him! After five minutes two female RCMP showed up and after a brief chat with the screener, questioned me and showed me the ammo! They were polite and not aggressive, which is unusual for female Cops. Anyway, I stood my ground and calmly explained that I am a shooter, and they could see that both primers were impinged, and it was a simple mistake I left them in my pocket. Meantime the screener started shouting, he was deliberately going through my jacket lining and checking. I’ve found something he said loudly, two or three repeats and the cops were on edge suddenly, I said,
No, no you have not, and he aggressively said YES I HAVE! Then he realized he had found the inside elasticated sleeve of the jacket and nothing more. He then rechecked all over the jacket, found nothing and handed it to me. The cops walked away, with the 9 mils, and I put my stuff back in my pockets, put my belt and shoes on, and left the area toward my gate, admittedly smiling at the idiocy of it all. It cost me ten minutes but was a fun experience! I bought ammo in Alberta and shipped it in my main luggage bag, for the experience of going through the motions of transporting ammo by air, and dutifully explained it to the ticket lady, and I made sure I filled out the form for it, they X rayed the bag, and off it went to the cargo hold. How ever, as I went through the screening area an hour later, they had a screener waiting with a swab to check me for gun shot residue! Darn it, I should have gone to the range that morning to get some! If I did have some, what would they have really learned??? That I own and shoot guns? I did that shipping the ammo, and showing my RPAL! What a waste of resources.
I see that the Vancouver airport security isn’t much better than that in Edmonton.
But a convicted terrorist on a no-fly list can travel by air across the country without any problems…. Nice country we have, isn’t it?
Indeed, BA…indeed.
This is another symptom of being a member of a pampered class with no real problems.
No prizes for guessing how they vote. I expect the same people complain to their shrinks of Trump related stress. And only now does the president even have the opportunity to give them something to cry about.
The panic over a missing water bottle reminds me of a line from the original version of the movie True Grit in which LaBoeuf (played by Glen Campbell) says to Mattie Ross (Kim Darby):
“You’re lucky to be where water’s so handy. I’ve seen the time I’ve drank out of a filthy hoofprint–and was glad to get it.”
The world desperately needs a famine or a good global war.
Or a viral pandemic, perhaps?
A ‘selective’ viral pandemic would be vastly preferable.
Nemo – Harry.
I do believe we are witnessing this today…no.?
Although I fear it’s not very selective.
“Although I fear it’s not very selective.”
Aye, there’s the rub.
Interestingly, it appears to bind to ACE2 receptors. Those are much more prolific in Asian people than Caucasian.
Immediately after Obama’s election in late 2007, the large firm I was working-for decided to STOP the practice of providing cute little bottles of water for meetings. Instead, the firm mandated a pitcher of water and a tray of glassware. We were suddenly behaving as though we were helping Obama “calm the seas” with his environmental stewardship.
I don’t recall seeing ANYONE pour a glass of water from the communal pitcher … ever.
Eventually … the water bottles returned. Take note FAKE virtue-signaling environmentalists … good ideas that are good for the environment have staying power. Bad ones get ditched. Hint: that’s how things work in the REAL world, and is why mankind has evolved to where we are today … pampered and wealthy to the point of needing to CREATE anxiety where none exists.
Plenty of people in my orbit . Said it all.
If you got to the end (I often read the first two paragraphs and last two), she blames the bottle fetish on fears about climate change.
Morons.
“she blames the bottle fetish on fears about climate change.”
Heh, she’ll fear allot more “Change” when retirement age hits.
Does nobody care about the trees – or the bandwidth – that had to be sacrificed to bring this progressive whiny article to us?
George Carlin’s All Suicide channel comes to mind,these …… will line up to kill them selves on pay per view.
Anything for their 5 seconds of fame.
I can see it now,”Validate your existence..punch your own ticket”
What more could a useless narcissist want?
Reddit
r/hydrohomies
Or
r/ocd
And yet…these are the people we let control our lives. When will the last straw be reached?
Oh please ! They are triggered enough by the water bottles, do not get them started on straws ! The humanity.
I was recently on a Westjet flight. The airline no longer uses plastic stir sticks. Instead, they’re made from wood.
This is an improvement? Would Greta be satisfied?
Weren’t we shamed into ‘saving’ the forests 20/30 years ago by shuttering logging and pulp/paper mills?
BTW I hate paper straws. Soggy and kinda gross tasting.
I was at an Italian restaurant where they gave my wife, who requested a straw, a raw Ziti noodle. Weird woke-flex but not a bad idea. However too fragile.
Did no one ever explain to people that paper is soluble in water? I mean, really.
“Plenty of people in my orbit have expressed a similar concern …”
So you’re saying that an alien invasion can be defeated when we take your bottles away…
Part of me wants to lay on the floor and laugh. Another part wants to cry and run into the woods.
My pen!!!
Don’t run off with it.
Actually has anyone spent any time observing young adults when they realize they do not have cellphone service?
Or lose their phones?
No signal, is my favourite,no amount of explaining “We be out of range” reaches them.
never mind “water bottle anxiety”,cell signal depravation is way more entertaining.