What's Your Problem?

Some of my friends and I were in Aberdeen town centre the other night. We were walking down a back lane, on our way to the cinema as it happens, when we spotted a suspicious looking fellow walking towards us. All of us seemed to sense that he'd be trouble.

As he got closer, I began to get the feeling that he had a knife. Some quick, whispered questions confirmed that my friends all had similar fears. He got a bit closer. Further whispering centered on the possibility to avoiding him altogether but that would have been exceedingly difficult by this stage. He was only ten paces away and we'd have had to basically turn and run. We walked on silently.

He'd got to within five paces when he started reaching for an inside pocket. I was absolutely convinced that he had a knife. So I shot him. In the head, as it happens. He became an ex-knife murderer in a very short space of time. Surprisingly fragile thing, a human head.

We searched him, of course, and it turns out he didn't have a knife after all (not much in his wallet either which just added to the sense of anti-climax). But, he did have in his possession a fishing magazine and in this fishing magazine were several advertisements for knives. It is clear to me that this man had been saving up for a knife. It was only my timely intervention which prevented him from aquiring enough money to buy a knife, ordering that knife, waiting twenty eight days for delivery of the knife, getting a little card through the door from the postman saying "I called today to deliver your knife but you weren't in", getting up early on a Sarturday morning to collect the knifel from the Post Office, unwrapping the knife, taking the knife out with him, walking down a back lane with the knife in an inside pocket, and using that same knife to stab an innocent bystander. Viciously.

As you can see, it's just as well I intervened the way I did. I take full responsibility and am absolutely confident that I made the right decision. I really was sure he had a knife. And he definitely was a nasty piece of work.

Some of my friends have fallen out with me over this. They say I should not have shot the suspected knife wielding maniac as I couldn't "be sure" he had a knife. Ludicrous. Some of them have even suggested that I manipulated their fear of a knife-wielding maniac in order to gain access to the chap's wallet. Outrageous. You had been notably short of money in the weeks before the incident, they say. Barking moonbats. Some have even suggested that I may have committed a crime. Absolutely ridiculous (and a moot point. As I'm Grand Master of Aberdeen Lodge, I very much doubt I'll be facing a police investigation any time soon*). It's people like these, these defeatist, these apologists for knife wielding maniacs, who've made knife wileding maniacism the threat it is today. These people would sit by and watch their own family being brutally slaughtered by knife wielding maniacs and then try to "open a dialogue" with the killers. Cowards, every one of them.

Would you believe that quite a few of the guys friends are trying to kill me now? Unbelievable, the way some people behave. Bring it on, that's what I say, bring it on. Now, are you, yes you, with me, or are you against me? Think hard before you answer.

Do I need to point out the obvious? Legal notice: this is a made up story.

*Apologies to any masons reading this. I'm sure freemasonry has moved on a great deal since monty python.