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So, I spent last week in Texas, home of awesome. I was in Houston near the tail end of my trip, and we were walking through a mall talking politics. Things eventually got around to knives. I said I no longer carried a pocket knife, because I've had people jump when I pulled it for a mundane task (specifically, removing packaging). My buddy Chuck suddenly pulls a knife out of his pocket, displaying it to me. It's a nice knife, to boot.

I react.

I don't react with horror. I don't react with alarm. I like Chuck. I know Chuck wouldn't cut me. What did I say?

"Shit, man."

I looked around, and I expected people to be scrambling, staring at him with horror for openly displaying a pocket knife. No one so much as spared a second glance. I expected security to lob themselves bodily at him, cops to come running. None did. I didn't fear the knife, I feared the reactions of the people around him. It came as an honest and genuine surprise to me that we didn't attract a single glance askew.

Man, that socialist shit is ingrained in me deeper than I thought.

Deschain