WTF?

[pecunium]

Recently, at work, something odd happened.

Guy came in, and started to ask me questions about knives. So far all is normal. Selling knives is a lot of what I do. We talk about this and that, and he starts being discoursive. He then asks me one of those questions I've had, now and again, though not here; at SLT.

"What do you think of women using knives?"


"I don't have any problem with it."

He went on, saying from things he'd seen them doing in the kitchen it gave him the willies. I said he ought to see the things I see men doing with knives. Then I tried to point out that it was more a matter of preconceptions than anything else. I told him I'd been in the army for 167 years, and I taught firearms handling, as well as knife skills. This was to lead into telling him that I far prefer to have female students (in firearms) than I do male ones (in knives it doesn't have the same gender skew, though there are traits I think I see more in women than in men. There are other traits I think I see in men more. some good, some bad, in both sexes).

That did, so I thoght, derail the conversation, but it was being a bit strange, and I wanted to done with it. He started asking me questions about guns, and I started actually moving him out of the store. On the way he started asking me about my thoughts on "open carry". My thoughts on the carryng of firearms are pretty simple. Most people shouldn't do it because they don't think it through carefully enough (for more detailed ideas of my thinking you can read the post/comments in places like Making Light (where the subject has come up, more than once).

I tried to say this, gently, but I was starting to get an odd vibe. I actually started pushing him out of the store (my boss actually noticed this). At the door he kept going, and then it happened, he explained why he was looking into things like "open carry" (which right he didn't know we had in Calif. never mind that as configured it's a mess... asking for trouble and conferring no real benefit to anyone who isn't willing to spend lots of time getting a number of drills down to pure muscle memory. Even if that's done the requirements still make you much more target than anything else... all of which I mentioned to him).

It's because of the political situation now, and the "trouble we have coming with the blacks and the browns".

I was croggled. He'd just given me what can only be described as the tea-bagger's secret handshake. I wasn't certain until he added, "You know I used to be a liberal."

The next say, he was back. Asked if I had a card, and then (when I said I didn't really. Which was true, in context. I don't have a card for my work, and I had no intent of sharing my personal one with him). That, it seemed was ok. He had one to give me, with a slightly conspiratorial leaning in as he said, "I might have some work for you."

Comments

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Creeeepy. But very, very interesting to read your report of being approached like this. I hope you can find a comfortable way to not interact with him if he starts showing up at the store regularly.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The least creepy, actually, is he want me to train himself, or someone else, how to do fast loading drills.

I suspect he want's as you say, someone to train a militia. Since in Calif. this is a felony (technically playing paintball on a team is a felony here, should the prosecutor want to make it so), I don't think I'll be doing that.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Ok, now if I ever go there I want a nice PLASTIC replica Colt. Possibly used as hat trim.

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

I told him I'd been in the army for 167 years

Wow, you _are_ well-preserved. :-)

[janetl.livejournal.com]

It's so hard to imagine this in an upscale cookware store in the city. Ick.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

crap... I meant 16, but I am well preserved.

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

I like your response best of all. But what if he agrees? *shudder*

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

and some days, it felt that long.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Not 167?

[wetdryvac.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

I bloody hate running into things like that, and it seems to be getting more common again. Good luck and good skill defusing the mess.

[tfcocs.livejournal.com]

My goodness. This is a scary story.

[tfcocs.livejournal.com]

I had the same response as you;my cadence is quite similar.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

He should be. We keep him in the best of spirits. :-)

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

that seems fair.

i don't much like our incipient police state, either. but i also really don't like having black people, brown people, and white women shot up. or carved up. or whatever he thought he was going to be able to pick up supplies for at a kitchen store.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

"What do you think of women using knives?"

I guess I lack context or experience, because my reaction is "Huh?" It wouldn't have occurred to me that people would have a gender bias on that one. Except, I guess, if someone is freaked out about the possibility that a woman might be using any kind of possibly-dangerous tool. I suppose that referring him to Neil Gaiman's "A Girl Needs a Knife" (e.g. as performed by the Flash Girls) would be a bad idea.

This sounds like a really creepy guy, and I hope he was possibly offering work, not "work".

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

*boggle*

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Only working-class rural people are crazy?

I'm sorry--I know you didn't mean that. But too darn many of us carry that assumption around: that racism and vigilanteism are characteristics of the rural poor. Well-off people in urban and suburban environments are at least as likely to be racist or politically extremist--possibly more likely, because of the insulating qualities of wealth. And they're better able to do damage with their convictions than poor people, who don't have access to political clout and/or expensive weapons.

Okay, I'm off the soapbox now. As you were! Carry on! *g*

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

My view on open carry is that if I see someone in a public place with a firearm, I call 911. Period. They can work it out with law enforcement. I am not interested in risking my life for someone else's attitude.

[ladytwnks.livejournal.com]

Pickled Pecunium? In brandy, scotch, whiskey, rum? ;)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well, not much left to say. Except "Let's be careful out there."

Re: Creepy creepy creepy

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Sounds like somebody hoping, hoping, hoping for trouble.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes. I know of people with those attitudes that do shop in upscale cookware stores, in NYC, at least. Lots of extremists there, on each side. I'm even related to some.

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

OK, that was creeptastic. I really, really hate when someone assumes that because you look like them, you share their [bigoted|paranoid|bigoted and paranoid] views. Seriously.

Although do keep us posted if he tries to get you to train his militia!

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

This is how he puts up with me. He drinks. :-)*

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

I've had this sort of conversation on my bus, in service. In one of them, the moron actually mentioned brown and yellow, at which point I stopped the bus and informed him that it was his stop. I pointed to my hand and said "This is yellow! Now get off before I call the police." Which he did.

I'd say when I was driving, I'd get something like this not quite once a year. Most I just cut off with "I'm sorry, I need you to sit down and stop talking at me so I can drive this bus safely"...or something like that.

I drove in generally good neighborhoods in San Francisco, and I am half Shanghainese.