Two Knives

I opened a cardboard box yesterday.  The box had been sealed pretty well with packing tape.

You know the type of box I’m talking about.  One that would likely not break open if you smashed it between two freight trains.

So I grabbed a knife, set the box on the kitchen counter alongside a newspaper, and went to work.  As it turned out, there was a second (emergency backup?) box within the first box.

While studying the emergency backup box to determine my plan of attack on that, I reached down to pick up the knife again.

I came up empty-handed.

I reached down a second time, a bit more earnestly.

Empty-handed again!

What the...?

I have posted a photograph I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.  You will see, in the photograph, the box I opened.  Alongside the box you will notice two knives.

Obviously I reached for the wrong knife.  Twice!

—Mitchell Hegman