This was me as a kid. An assortment of Swiss Army knives, always available. Finally got one of the good Victorinox ones, and it was my EDC in high school. Totally normal in the redneck town where I grew up. I flew on planes at least twice with one on me, connected as a keychain. No one cared.

The week after 9/11, I was in college in a large coastal city, and a friend that worked at the campus TV station was asking people to be on their "talk show" which was just 3 random students with nothing better to do, and a theatre minor to moderate. Sure enough, 9/11 came up, and everyone was shocked, shocked I tell you, that box cutters made it in the plane.

I said I carried a pocket knife around because it's a tool. And that I had managed to make it on a plane with one before, so it's not that shocking. I had one on me at the time, like one does.

The looks I got - it was like I had told them I invented plane hijackings and was about to murder then all right there. Instantly they were the Us, even the moderator, I was a violent and terrifying Them. With a 3 inch folding blade I wouldn't trust to cut more than a baby bell cheese. Fortunately, literally no one watched the show, but I just thought it was the other 3 people being weird.

Nope. City people just don't expect to do things for themselves a lot I guess. Or something, I'm still not clear on what they're thinking.

Anyway, my EDC these days is a Kershaw tonto blade. Love the big wide stumpiness of it. What's yours?

At my uni, we technically have a rule banning pocket knives on campus, but because we have engineering and animal science students on campus, it's not a big deal when you see people carry pocket knives.

That sounds a lot like Albacete and Andalucía with all those navajas, especially the gifting part (Navajas de Albacete are a well-known souvenir here in Spain)

Europeans in shambles.