This tale begins a long time ago in my early teens or perhaps even before, I cant recall exactly. This story is true, and none of the names have been changed to protect the innocent (or guilty).
When I was a young child I was fascinated with the show MacGyver. I just really liked the idea that someone would be so resourceful, and smart, yet centered and pacifist enough that the bastard never just picked up a gun and shot somebody. Instead, he would rig an elaborate trap using twine, duct tape, three screw drivers, a heavy toolbox and some toothpaste, which would, through a series of pulleys and levers drop the heavy toolbox on the bad guy's head when he came through a door.
The man also had an incredible mullet.
I joined the boy scouts so I could become helpful and resourceful, and I was always looking for an opportunity to rig up something ridiculous to save the day (They didn't really come up very often...).
Anyway, for any of you who watched the show, you will know of course that MacGyver's most important tool was his trusty Swiss Army Knife. It had everything he needed to save the damsel in distress, take out all the bad guys, and fix his old car to ride off into the sunset afterward. And so began my obsession with pocket knives.
I collected them for several years. My grandfather purchased a leather bound case for my birthday one year which I deposited them in. My favorite were the knives with function... The Swiss Army knives (of which I still always carry), and the Swiss Army knock-offs that the Boy Scouts made as well. I was never particularly interested in the single blade, locking variety because well... They weren't very resourceful were they? MacGyver would never carry such a thing.
But I ended up with a few of them anyway.
One day, while visiting my uncle, he showed me a knife that he had acquired somehow, and wanted to know if I would like to have it. This knife was a single blade locking type, but it was huge, at least 5 inches when folded and double that with the blade extended. I'm not really sure what you would use a knife like that for other than murdering something. But it was a knife, and I liked them, so he gave it to me. I placed it into my collection and gave it little further thought.
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| My Uncle's Gift |
We will now fast forward several years. I am a teenager in high school.
One fall evening my friend David was visiting. My parents had gone out and we were just sitting downstairs hanging out.
Suddenly there were headlights outside. My parents had returned.
Why this idea suddenly came to me I cannot tell you to this day. But the truth is, when I saw those headlights, the first thing that came to mind was "Lets hide! It'll be hilarious!". David agreed.
And so we quickly scrambled for whatever hiding place we might manage.
Into the spare bedroom we went. I hid behind an exercise machine of some sort, and I directed David to hide in the closet. "She never uses that closet." I said.
So my parents enter and we sit quietly, proud of our stealth.
Immediately my mother enters the room.
I plainly see that she has intentions of hanging her coat in the closet which I directed David to hide in.
I could have warned her... I could have broken cover and spared him the violence that was coming. But somehow it didn't seem right. I mean, it's every man for himself on these types of stealth missions and my cover was not yet blown. So I watched it unfold.
She opened the door, and there was a large shadowy man standing in her closet. She yelled, and punched him furiously while he screamed "Penney, its me! its meeeee!"
I laughed and laughed. My mother swore vengeance.
"Whatever, Mom..."
Months later during that winter, I was home alone at night. My Dad was at work, and my mother had gone out Christmas shopping. I was upstairs in my room playing some Playstation game or another, probably Final Fantasy 7, given the time period.
I should probably describe my bedroom for the sake of clarity. At my parents house, my bedroom was essentially an attic. There were two separate rooms, a larger one with the staircase leading downstairs, and a smaller one where my bed, computer, TV, etc. were. I basically had the entire upstairs to myself, and I was situated in the smaller room playing my games.
The door to my room always had a peculiar property where when someone opened the outside door, a draft would sort of pull the door in and you could hear it bang slightly in the door frame. Nothing loud or anything, just a subtle "click" and you'd know "Hey, someone is home."
So I'm sitting upstairs playing my game and I hear the pop of my door.
"Mom's home." I think to myself, and continue my gaming.
Several minutes later I decided it was time for a drink. So I head downstairs.
Everything is as it was left, living room and kitchen lights are on, and I could not hear my mother anywhere.
"Mom?" I say. There is no answer.
I decide that the cat must have leaned up against my door or something to cause it to make that noise, and that my mother is in fact not home yet. I grab my drink, return to my room, and shut the door behind me.
Several minutes later, I hear movement downstairs, and decide that my mother has in fact, finally arrived. I walk downstairs to see if she needs help carrying anything... only to find that again... nobody is there. The front door is shut and locked, and there is nobody outside.
Curious, but not yet freaked out, I decided that I'm hearing things and once again return to my room, shutting the door behind me.
Back at my gaming station a few minutes later, suddenly I hear my door slowly swing open.
"Mom?" I say.
No answer.
I walked to my staircase and peered down. There is nothing out of the ordinary. I walked downstairs and again examined the kitchen / living room area for signs of entry. Nothing.
"I must not have pulled the door all the way closed" I decide. I firmly close the door, and return to my room... Wary.
Several minutes pass, and then I hear my door open once again. Blatantly this time. No slow creaking noise, and no convincing myself that it opened by itself.
"Mom...?"
Nothing.
I walked to my staircase to peer downstairs. The door was wide open. All the lights are off.
I am going to die.
My mind flicked through every horror movie ever, and yet I still did not learn from the mistakes of the ill fated teenagers who were about to die in horrible ways. There was a phone available to me upstairs, but I didn't even consider the possibility of calling 911.
No. What I did instead, was look around my room for a weapon.
And there it was. My uncle's gift from many years before. 10 inches of sharpened, lock bladed murder. My fear would not hold me back. I would not bow to this Michael Myers wannabe stalking my home. I would kill him and rid the world of his evil.
And so I locked the blade into "death dealing" position, and cautiously inched down my stairway. Every step was a creaking nightmare as I got closer and closer to the obvious bottleneck of the stairway where the killer would either strike me from the living room on the left, or the kitchen on the right. I hoped for the kitchen because I would have a clear shot to defend myself from there, the door would be in my way to the left.
As I reached the bottom my body tensed for attack but nothing came, so I stepped out into the hallway and then I hear it...
"BOO!!!" says my mother from the kitchen... as if she were the ghost from a Scooby Doo cartoon instead of someone who just reenacted every slasher movie ever.
"MOM!!! I COULD HAVE KILLED YOU!!!"
She laughs and laughs.
And now every time I see that knife that my uncle gave me so many years ago... I think "There's the knife I almost stabbed my own mother with..."
And the moral of the story is... Don't fuck with my mother. She is scary, and evil.
Thank you, thank you. My laugh gland is now spent.
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