The Knife Part 1: The Unveiling

At the time, the story I am about to divulge was far more serious and there was little humor in it. However, looking back on it over a decade later I find it kind of funny. Also, I have changed the names of all participants in the events. I am quite certain non of these people will be reading this, but creating aliases in a true story has been something that I have always wanted to do.

Third grade. This is where our epic saga begins. We were on the home stretch of the school year. Summer was quickly approaching. However, this day was unlike other days. Things were different. Well, things weren’t that different. Not until lunch, anyway.

During lunch on this specific day, most of the fellas in my class sat at the same table; excluding Andrew, Marcus and Gregory. These guys sat at a different table due to lack of space. Back to my table. As I ate, I overheard a conversation involving a recent dare between two students, Peter and Corey. Apparently, at a previous date Peter dared Corey to bring a pocketknife into school. A discussion was emerging about whether or not Corey had followed through. It was decided that he would unveil the object on the playground, during recess. I remember thinking to myself that this was probably not a great thing to be around, but for some reason when recess time came I decided to go to the unveiling.

During recess, I joined the group that went to this large rock behind the garage that was on the playground. They chose the rock because of the large amounts of tree and leaf coverage. All in all there were six of us that went: Myself, Corey, Peter, Jeff, Jack and Jerry. As we all gathered around, Corey presented the pocketknife and began to pull out various attachments to the device (it was basically a mini multi tool). It was at this point that I began to regret my decision to be there. I repeatedly asked Corey to never bring this thing back again. Shortly before he pulled out the actual knife part, I decided to leave. You see, I tried to convince myself that if I didn’t see it, it didn’t exit. And that satisfied me, for then.

As I left to go play football, Jerry came with me. A little back story about Jerry, I considered him to be my arch nemesis. He wanted to best friends with my friend Andrew, but he didn’t want to be friends with me. So, on our way to play football we got into some sort of argument, which resulted in a pushing match. (When never got into actual fights, just pushing matches.) This particular pushing match resuled in Jerry getting a slight nosebleed. After all of this commotion, I started to forget about the earlier events of lunch and became more worried about Jerry telling on me (which I don’t think he did). At the end of the day, I thought I could put the earlier events of lunch behind me. Much to my chagrin, I would soon find out that this was not possible.

On a side note, the next day Jerry came to school and told me that he lost a gallon of blood the previous night because of what transpired during lunch. Liar, liar. Pants on Fire.