Knife Addict — Blog Contest Entry

Hi.  My name is Alan, and I am a knife addict.

I was once a baseball card addict.  Then I was a straight razor addict.  Finally I settled comfortably into a knife addiction.

Some may ask why.  Why does one become a knife addict?  I can honestly say that I have no idea.  I have other addictions.  I am addicted to Twitter, and Words with Friends.  But many people are addicted to these things.  Fewer people are addicted to knives.

What is the life of a knife addict like?  Well, it’s not exactly easy to maintain the knife addict lifestyle.  You don’t have to be unemployed, but it helps.  There are a lot of things that a knife addict has to do all day, and having a job would just get in the way.

Except of course, when it comes to getting money to buy knives.  Like any good addiction, a knife addiction is not cheap.  A decent knife usually costs about $100.00, and a really nice knife (Chris Reeve Sebenza for an example) costs almost $400.00.  And of course, being a knife addict, having just one knife is unthinkable.  The key here is more, more, more!

A typical day in the life of a knife addict starts out checking YouTube for new knife videos.  Is there a new Spyderco that someone got his hands on?  If so, he better have made a video of it!  Oh, wait…there it is!  Watch that one first.  Oh, look, someone pimped an Emerson Mini-Commander.  I need to check that one out to see what he did.  Do those green day-glo scales look better than the G-10 scales on mine?  Maybe I should send him an email asking him if he would consider pimping my knife too.  Oh, but wait, he probably needs to know me first, and then I would have to part with my Emerson for at least a few weeks.  Plus I would have to decide if I want to lay out money for a pimp job, or use the money for another new knife.  Maybe this deserves some more thought first.

After watching and commenting on the new knife videos, it’s off to the sharpening videos.  You see, being a knife addict also means (in my case) being a sharpening addict.  And that means watching sharpening videos also.  Maybe someone has invented a new style of using the Spyderco Sharpmaker that would work better for me.  Maybe I should give freehand sharpening just one more try.  Better refresh my memory and check out what sharpening stones people are using to get that hair-whittling edge.  And maybe I should also watch a few videos on the expensive systems too, like the EdgePro.   Maybe I should get a better strop too…

Being a knife sharpening addict is sort of like being a surfing addict; we are looking for that perfect edge like surfers are always looking for that perfect wave.  It’s mystical, but it’s out there.  Is cutting phone book paper really good enough?  Is my Paramilitary 2 (black blade, black g-10 scales) really sharp enough yet?  Wait!  I cut the skin off an apple yesterday!  That means it must be time for a touch up.

And so out comes the Sharpmaker again.  Is that 30 degree secondary bevel still holding up?  In the DVD, Sal said to go to the 30 degree side once every ten sharpenings.  Has it been ten yet?  Better hit the blade on the 30 degree side, just to be sure.  Can’t be too careful, right.  Should I use the Sharpie on the blade trick.  Some say that’s the only way to know if you’re really hitting the whole bevel.  But that usually gets Sharpie all over the knife blade too, which is a bitch to get off.  Oh, what the hell.

Two hours later, no lunch, no shower, haven’t applied for any jobs, and I’m STILL SCRAPING THE F******G SHARPIE OFF THE EDGE! What the hell is going on here?  Just yesterday I was cutting beautiful patterns out of phonebook paper using this knife and today I can’t even get the Sharpie off the end of this thing.  Maybe the Sharpie is defective.  No, that’s impossible.  Let me get a slice of phonebook paper out and try again.  Oh shit.  Now the blade is completely dull.  How the hell did that happen?

Another three hours and the blade is finally sharp.  I still haven’t done a damn thing today other than sharpen this knife, which was probably already sharp in the first place.

Now I have to check Ebay because maybe, just maybe someone has listed a Paramilitary 2 with the camo scales which I really would like to own.  And for some reason, nobody seems to have the Para 2 these days, even though it’s getting to Christmas and you would think there would be plenty of them out there, but there aren’t.

And so it goes.  Every day it’s the same thing.  Who got a new knife and made an unboxing video?  Who has an unbeatable offer on a knife that’s impossible to find?  Etc.  And before you know it, you’re asking yourself how could you possibly live without another Manix 2.

Being a knife addict also means carrying your knives around.  This can lead to half an hour of decision making about just which knife is the best knife to leave the house with.  And is one knife really enough?  Do I need a backup blade in case my primary blade fails for some reason?  And where should I carry each one?  Ugh!  Decisions, decisions.

It’s a tough addiction.  Lots of people don’t understand.  Is it even explicable?  Not really.  It’s a lot easier to settle back and watch some videos, read some articles, sharpen, and swear that by everything that’s holy, you will not buy another knife today, even if Spyderco comes out with a sprint run special carpenter steel blade grey G-10 scaled Military.  OK, maybe just one more…