{"id":1846,"date":"2023-12-19T10:45:23","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T18:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/?p=1846"},"modified":"2023-12-19T17:39:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T01:39:52","slug":"the-allen-wrench-story-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/the-allen-wrench-story-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The allen wrench (story time)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sometimes I have trouble not answering questions literally even when a literal answer is not what is wanted.

When living in Albuquerque in my 20s I needed to go to the courthouse and at the time I was riding my bicycle a lot so I\u2019d ridden it to the courthouse that day. As I\u2019m passing through security I tossed my keys and and allen wrench into the basket as I went through the scanner.

The guard looks suspiciously at the allen key but doesn\u2019t touch it.

Guard: \u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d

Is he punking me?\u00a0 Who doesn\u2019t know what an allen key is.

Me:\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s an allen key?\u201d

He\u2019s not happy with that answer and is a little annoyed.

Guard: \u201cIs it a weapon?\u201d

Really? How can he not know what this is?\u00a0 Maybe the problem is the word \u2018key\u2019.\u00a0 I\u2019ll call it a wrench and that will definitely clear this up. This is a mistake. I should have said ‘it’s not a weapon’ but I was a little hung up on explaining what it was to go for what it was not.

Me: \u201cIt\u2019s an allen wrench.\u201d

Nope. He\u2019s frustrated that I\u2019m not giving him the kind of answer he wants.

Guard (exasperated): \u201cCan you hurt someone with it?\u201d

Huh.\u00a0 Well that\u2019s a different question.\u00a0 It\u2019s a solid object so yes, I could technically hurt someone with it. Don\u2019t say that.\u00a0 But now it’s become a puzzle to solve, how could I use an allen wrench as a weapon? Could I take it and jab it into an eye? \u00a0 Don\u2019t say that either. Maybe I could kill someone with a ballpoint pen! I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve seen that in a movie. Again, don\u2019t say that out loud. I haven\u2019t said it, right?\u00a0 Good.\u00a0 Why ask this question? Aren’t there any number of other things inside that could be used as weapons? How about a chair or a lamp? A true warrior is never disarmed until the room is empty!\u00a0 Nope, don\u2019t say that.

There\u2019s an uncomfortably long pause while all these scenarios run through my head.\u00a0 I need a better answer. One that doesn’t get me tackled.

Me: \u201cIt\u2019s a wrench. I could unscrew something?\u201d

He makes a sort of scoffing grunt and stares at me a bit longer before letting me through security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I have trouble not answering questions literally even when a literal answer is not what is wanted. When living in Albuquerque in my 20s I needed to go to the courthouse and at the time I was riding my bicycle a lot so I\u2019d ridden it to the courthouse that day. As I\u2019m passing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[237],"tags":[238,239],"class_list":["post-1846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-story-time","tag-albuquerque","tag-humor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9A0tE-tM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1846"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1852,"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions\/1852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesuncraft.talkat.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}