The Knife With the Broken Blade

All my life I have hated practical jokes, and with a couple of exceptions, I have strictly avoided their use.  One involved a close professional guide friend, of which joke I am somewhat ashamed, but which we still snicker about to this day.  We were hunting brown bears down on the Alaskan peninsula one spring.  He had refilled a small camping stove we were using for warmth in a drafty wood framed tent.  In the process he spilled a sizeable amount onto the wooden floor around the stove.  Expecting the possibility of a burst of flames when the fumes and spilled fuel ignited, he was hesitatingly stretching out his arm at full length and turning his head away.  Seeing a perfect opportunity, I waited until just the last second and yelled “Boom!”  He fell over backwards, there was no ignition, and the hunter, the assistant guide, and I all fell over laughing.  Eventually, he forgave me.  

That was many years ago.  The next one happened not long ago, and while humorous, was not quite such an overt gag.  

In the fall of 2011 and then again in 2014 I was invited by my good friend Yale Metzger, Anchorage attorney, to accompany him on a red stag hunt in Scotland.  He has superb connections with a branch of Royalty on the estate where we hunted.  

Both trips over we took some small gifts to present to various people, ranging from the guides (known in Scotland as stalkers if they guide for game and not fish) to Royalty.  These took the form of small knives and bookmarks that we picked out and which I engraved appropriately.  

For the 2014 trip we took a few engraved Kershaw folding knives and gave one to both the head stalker of the estate and his brother.  I told them I expected they actually use the knives because they carried a lifetime guarantee – mine!

Fast forward a few years to a fall Anchorage gun show where I encountered my attorney friend.  He’d just returned from Scotland hunting and was telling me all about the trip.  

It seems our estate stalker friend had been using the knife we’d given him and had foolishly twisted the blade while field dressing an animal.  He snapped the blade in half.  He told Yale he was just sick about having broken his treasured knife, instructing him at the same time to under no circumstances tell me of his folly.   Of course, Yale told me the tale immediately!!

I’d hardly left the show when an idea for a (yes another) practical joke popped into my head.  It was so good I had to pull over and give Yale a call on his cell phone.  I told him that I’d engrave another knife with the exact pattern. He would take it back over to Scotland on his next trip.  His job was to get Tom to give him the broken knife, saying he thought he could fix it overnight using a new blade I’d sent along for replacement.  Tom would be stunned and amazed with the speed and expertise displayed by his American friends!  Yale agreed this was a perfect scenario.  

In due time I did engrave a knife, sent it along with Yale, and what happened was actually better than our original plans.  

Yale arrived at Tom’s home and was invited in.  Tom, his nephew, and Yale were sitting at the kitchen table making small talk.  Eventually the opportunity rose for Yale to ask Tom if he still had the broken knife.  He did.  This was the time for Yale to claim I’d sent a new knife blade for replacement with instructions as to how to make the exchange.  They immediately said this was impossible.  Taking the broken knife, Yale instructed them he’d only be a few minutes and to stay at the table.  Off he went.

It was warm enough the inner house door was open, and they could both see and hear him through the screen door.  Opening the car boot (trunk for us Americans), he used it to cover his actions.  Covertly picking up a couple of rocks, he whacked them together several times to make some racket as if he was doing some heavy hammering.  After another few moments, he took the new knife back inside, saying “There you go, all done!  It might be a little stiff when you open and close it, but it will soon wear in.”  

I wish I could have been there to see the stunned look on their faces.  They simply couldn’t believe what they were seeing.  The nephew was the most skeptical, feeling for certain there was some form of trickery going on.  

Thus ends the tale of the knife with the broken blade.  Yale brought back the original, and one of these days I’ll probably do something with it.  After all, it IS an engraved knife!