Crazy confessions. I don’t mind wielding knives, I carry one whenever I’m out. I took tactical workshops practicing knife defense and using knives for self defense, but I don’t trust myself by myself around really sharp objects. Just like I don’t trust myself near the edge of cliffs. It’s not a fear of heights but a crazy sense of exhilaration, which I’m sure is just some perverse re-framing of the fear of falling into the compulsion to leap and it’s being interpreted as a “WTF MAN?! DON’T MOVE ANY CLOSER!” So when I bought this mandoline, an evil little guillotine device for fingers, I also bought level 5 protection gloves, one step down from chain mail. Mainly because chain mail gloves are a little hard to slice a sweet potato paper-thin with. I would imagine. And because I’ve cut myself with a knife before a couple of times and still carry scars that aren’t just due to carelessness.