Bear With Us

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks who had an impulse to break into strangers’ houses when they were away. She didn’t steal anything of value, but she would rifle through their things, help herself to food, and sometimes try on their clothing. It should be noted her home situation was pretty messed up.

As you may well know from TV crime procedurals, this kind of habitual transgression is very likely to escalate into more and more serious acts as the offender grows older. What’s to stop a kid like Goldilocks from maturing into a violent and truly dangerous criminal adult? Nothing short of getting eaten by a bear, probably. That’s foreshadowing. Anyway, there was no one in her life to worry about any of this stuff, or she probably wouldn’t have spent so much time wandering the villages and forests unsupervised.

One day, Goldilocks happened on a quaint and rustic cottage deep in the forest. After watching in silence from the shadows of the pines for an hour to make sure no one was home, she let herself in.

The first thing she found was a 20-piece set of Ginsu Quikut knives. Golidlocks was kind of obsessed with knives, because of course she was. These seemed alright. Nothing fancy, but, you know, fine. They were made of surgical stainless steel with black plastic handles, and they were dishwasher safe. She played with them a while, pressing the steel of one against her cheek almost, but not quite, hard enough to break the skin, before saying: “These knives are too… eh, I dunno. They’re alright. I’ve definitely handled better knives.”

Then she looked down the counter and saw a second set of knives, Oster’s Coimbra six-piece cutlery set. These featured precision-tapered ground blades and a durable, extra-wide safety bolster for stability and control. She selected the chef’s knife from this set, held it in a stabbing posture, and imagined how it would feel to attack something with it. She looked around for a suitable target. There were three mismatched chairs in the sitting room, only one of which was upholstered. “How weird,” Goldilocks thought. “Anyway, these knives are too… too what? They’re nicer than the other set, but there are fewer of them too. They would be easier to compare if they only differed in one of those respects.”

But just then she noticed a third set of knives on the counter opposite, also a six-piece set, made by Kai Luna. These featured blades of German DIN1.4116 high-carbon stainless-steel, with a traditional Japanese hammered finish. They were light and comfortable in her hand, thanks to soft-grip handles with rubberized inserts. “Ah,” said Goldilocks. “These knives are… well, they’re the nicest of the three sets here, for sure. And the sheaths are nice, but honestly I kind of prefer a knife block for storage. So, while it’s tempting to just think of the three sets on a continuum from ‘good’ to ‘better’, there are enough variables to complicate that picture a little. I wonder what each set cost? Because that could provide some clarity. Or muddy the waters even further, depending. Hmm.”

Musing about this in the kitchen, idly tossing the santoku-style Kai Luna “Asian utility” knife from hand to hand, Goldilocks failed to notice the family of three Eurasian brown bears (Ursus arctos arctos) who had crept in through the door she left ajar, and now fell upon her effecting the gory conclusion portended at this tale’s outset, and sparing humanity the girl’s future malefactions.