Knives Out for Christmas

This past Christmas my wife, Christine, wanted a new set of kitchen knives. The knives we had were a wedding present. That was 24 years ago, so needless to say, our kitchen knives were rather dull. Our youngest, William, wanted to get something for his mother for Christmas so I steered him away from the Lego Death Star he thought she would love and towards a new, shiny, sharp set of kitchen knives.

Christine is a fantastic cook. The kitchen is hers, and she'll let you know that. I have an outbuilding in which I store all my shit and build birdhouses. I haven't actually built one yet, but I'm gonna real soon. Cooking for Christine is relaxing, and we all are grateful for it. I cook a little. Well, more precisely, I can make one thing. Ravioli. Even more accurately, I don't make ravioli, I thaw it. So my skills in the kitchen involve boiling water. If it wasn't for Christine, we'd all hate ravioli by now.

So Christine and I swung by a local kitchen supply store so she could pick out the knives she wanted. It was my job to bring William by and steer him in the direction of the knives which Christine selected. I even told the sales clerk of my plan to ensure our Christmas ruse would play out without a hitch; after all, that's what Christmas is all about, presents and lying.

When I was a kid I convinced my father to buy my mother a zebra bamboo handle knife set for Christmas which I thought was the best knives money could buy. Little did I know that "carbon steel" does not mean"stainless steel." They rusted terribly after one use. My mother tried to clean them with steel wool which could've killed us all. They disappeared just before Mother's Day when my mom picked out a set of knives she wanted then wrapped them up for herself. So I figured I would just skip the youthful enthusiasm for something that looks good on the surface to a ten year old and go straight to the source.

When I brought William into the store, he gravitated to an oak wood handle, pitted knife called a Damascus blade. Now, I'm sure this is a good set of knives made out of the finest steel, but there's no way Christine would wield in her kitchen for the next two decades a knife that looked like it was used on Julius Caesar. They were expensive too so we weren't going to dump them before Mother's Day.

"Oh, those knives are not good for cutting chicken," I exclaimed.

I gently steered William away from his selection, knowing full well that chicken is his main food item. Once I got William to choose the right set, he picked a variety of knives. When we got home, we snuck them into the house. He wrapped them himself then put each under the Christmas tree. Our Christmas bait and switch played out perfectly. On Christmas Day, Christine acted very surprised when she unwrapped William's knives.

As the pandemic subsided, Christine thought we should return to going on family vacations. I didn't miss our family trips because I hate flying, and somehow I always end up shlepping everyone's luggage. Now that our oldest, Aidan, is in college and bigger than me, he can tote his own shit. William is pretty independent so its likely I can get him to do the same. That just leaves flying as the only obstacle.

Flying has always been miserable, but ever since people started blowing up their shoes, air travel has gotten barbaric. I don't miss waiting in line to remove articles of clothing or get a full body scan just so you can insert yourself into a seat next to someone's service dog that will likely vomit in the aisle mid-flight. There's no where on this planet I want to go so badly that I would put up with that anymore.

"We'll get TSA precheck and global entry," Christine reasoned.

Not wanting to give in so easily, I agreed if we could fly first class. I have never flown first class in my life even for work. Other than the extra room and early boarding, I'm not sure what first class gets you, but whatever it is, I want it. If I am going to have to cram into some aircraft and risk an embolism, I want to get a full can of soda and an extra bag of beer nuts.

So Christine initiated the extensive process of prescreening all of us in order to attain "trusted traveller" status. After submitting the lengthly paperwork and paying the fees, she waited for our interviews to be scheduled. She forked over $29 for access to an app that allows one to reschedule their appointment sooner and to a nearby location. Christine monitored the app daily as slots opened and filled in a matter of minutes. Optimizing the process with the utmost precision and efficiency, she successfully moved my appointment and Aidan's up by months and to a local airport. 

"Just go to your appointment and don't piss off the interviewer, and everything will be fine," she reassured.

I read an article about the interviews with TSA. You're not supposed to make small talk or joke around with them. The processes of ensuring I won't blow up my own balls and my family by detonating my underwear is no laughing matter. It’s serious business. So serious that they take your fingerprints and send them to the FBI to ensure you don't have a criminal record. I learned that if they ask you,

"Have you ever been arrested?"

And you say, "no" because all the charges were dropped that time you were busted for disturbing the peace after that punk rock concert you attended in college just because you wanted to get close to a girl in your Decision Making Theory class, they'll reject your application for lying. You see, you have to know the legal difference between being arrested and being charged. I'm not a lawyer so by law I'm not allowed to dispense legal advice, but a good rule of thumb is if the police put you in handcuffs and read your Miranda rights, then take you for a ride in a squad car, then you've been arrested. You'll know you've been charged if in order to go home you have to put up said home as bond to ensure that you come back and sit court side later.

Everything was going according to Christine's plan, that is, until I decided to cut a bagel with her new Christmas knives. Now I've been slicing bagels for over two decades with our dull wedding present knives. These new knives were well balanced, exquisitely crafted in Germany and sharp as fuck. I mean, I didn't even feel the blade slice through my finger. In fact it went through the nail before it even touched my bagel. Immediately I applied pressure to the wound, then turned to Christine and said,

"I just cut myself."

When I showed her my finger, she sprang into Mom Mode Defcon 1. She bolted away returning with an array of bandages, tourniquets, bacitracin, gauze, medical tape, band-aids, even a bottle mercurochrome.

"Apply pressure," she instructed.

After Florence Wifengale patched me up, we both noticed that I was bleeding through the bandage. Since I had shaved a deep layer of skin off my finger, the medical tape was not strong enough to compress the wound sufficiently to stop the bleeding so I wrapped the bandage with electrical tape then called my buddy, Roger. Roger is a Yale educated emergency room physician. He told me to get clotting bandages and liquid skin. Roger is the kind of guy you want around in these circumstances because he can tell you just what to do without using any latin. After several hours we checked my finger. Since it was still bleeding heavily, we wrapped it back up with a blood be-gone bandage and electrical tape. The next day it looked like this.

At this point with my TSA interview a mere three days away, Christine pointed out that I needed to stop the bleeding so they could take my fingerprints. Even though the damage was on the top of my finger, the bandage and tape covered my print. She checked online. They required all ten. Thinking quickly, I had Christine swap my appointment with Aidan's which bought me an extra day.

Now, Christine worked hard on all this paperwork to ensure we had the easiest time flying as humanly possible. The fact that I almost lopped off my finger was bad in itself, but if I screwed up my TSA interview because of an inaccessible fingerprint, I might never hear the end of it. Compounding matters was the fact that Christine's interview wasn't yet scheduled. Apparently the TSA deep dives on every fourth applicant and since Aidan, William and I all made it through to the interview phase, Christine paperwork was being held up. I knew she never should have joined the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The plan was on the morning of my interview I was to carefully remove my clotting bandage then apply liquid skin to the wound. This would give the TSA access to my fingerprint. Roger told me to run the bandage under the faucet. Don't just rip it off otherwise I would be starting all over again. It took about an hour to get the cloth free. I dabbed on the liquid skin, let it dry, then drove to my appointment while holding my hand above my heart. I arrived 45 minutes early.

The armed TSA agent, Mitch, asked if I was "Steve." When I told him, "no" he checked his list.

"Kevin?" Mitch asked.

"No," I replied.

Even though I know you're not supposed to say anything unless asked, I blurted, 

"I'm Robert and early."

Mitch found me way down the list.

"I guess so," he responded, "Let's go."

Mitch brought me to a small room in which I would be okay as long as he didn't want me to do anything that required me to put my hand below my heart like tie a shoe or something. He looked through my paperwork then asked,

"And your middle name is?"

"Michael," I answered, holding back the urge to launch into a diatribe about how my parents gave me two first names, and how I wished my middle name was 'Machiavelli." Shit, I'd take "Milhouse" over my middle name.

"And you were born in West Warwick, Rhode Island?" Mitch queried.

"Warwick," I answered, fighting back my desire to explain that I grew up in West Warwick while the hospital I was born in was in Warwick.

"And your mother's maiden name is?" Mitch continue.

"Bianco," I answered, knowing full well that most people from my generation haven't a clue what a maiden name is.

Mitch looked pleased.

"That's it?" I thought. Your middle name, where you were born and your mother's maiden name is all they need to determine if you're a domestic threat?

"Now put you fingers on this pad," Mitch instructed.

I did my right hand first to get an idea as to what this was going to entail. Mitch rolled my fingers to get an adequate reading. A small light on the reader changed from red to green followed by an audible "Ding" signifying a successful scan. My thumb was next. Ding. When we moved to my hand with the injured, glued up finger, I was hesitant, but I didn't want to object and potentially lose my slot in the investigative screening process. I placed my fingers on the reader. When the red light shone green, I yelled,

"Fuck yeah!" before the machine got out the reassuring "Ding."

Mitch stared at me suspiciously. After my thumb scan, he said,

"Ok, Bob. Take a seat while I wait for the FBI report."

I scooped up my finger and got out of there. A few minutes later, Mitch returned and called another name then informed me that my results weren't back yet. This happened three more times. I figured that the FBI database had millions of entries and that a scan of my fingerprints would require several matching points to register a hit so it might take some time. I imagined Mitch returning with,

"Bob, there's a problem."

"What?" I ask.

"The FBI report," Mitch says.

"What about it?" I ask.

"Tell me about Blog of One."

That didn't happen though. The next time Mitch came back he gave me the thumbs up and told me I was done. I thanked him, and off I went. Christine still hasn't gotten approval for her interview yet, but when she does we all know the drill. Go early. Don't joke around. No chit-chat and...

No bagels.