The Pocket Knife

Remember when you were a boy scout and they drummed into your brain that you should always carry a pocket knife with you at all times, just in case you had to hollow out a canoe, or kill a grizzly bear on your way home from work?

In all my years of carrying my tiny pocket knife on my key chain my only occasion to use it has been to cut those pesky threads that stick out from my ties, and trim painful hangnails that seem to snag on everything. In the moment my hangnails do seem life threatening and could warrant sharing “The Case of the Infected Hangnail” in a Den Meeting, explaining how my pocket knife has rescued me from almost certain death. But I have never really used my pocket knife to solve a major life problem or to save a life until a little experience I had on Friday that may warrant a little write up in Boys Life.

So I went to the temple for some needed spiritual enlightenment. As I returned to my locker I looked up to see that someone had slammed the handle to my garment bag into their locker. So I pulled and tugged and reverently banged on the locker but it didn’t budge. I tried to get one of the temple workers to see if they could open this locker that had my bag in a vice like grip but they didn’t know how to remedy the problem.

As I sat there on my bench, within my locker stall, pondering how to get out of this predicament, I received, what I believe was inspiration. I heard the voice of my old scout master in the distance, “Use the knife Rob…Trust your feelings”.

So I reached up with my trusty pocket knife and amputated the handle from my bag with one precise cut.

Sure it was awkward, me standing on a stool, knife in hand, sawing at my garment bag handle in the temple locker room, but I think most of those in attendance were boy scouts so I am sure they understood.

As I walked out of the temple with my lop-sided garment bag, struggling to not trip over it, me thought I heard in the distance, the sweet voice of a long since forgotten Scout Master saying, “Rob, may the knife be with you…always.”

And I said to him, “Thanks for that, but isn’t there some sort of bionic or robotic handle that we can attach to make this garment bag whole again?”

All I got was, “Rob, Two words…Boondoggle.”