The Ones That Got Away: A Catalog of Regrets
There’s a kind of grief only shopkeepers know. It happens when something rare, strange, or quietly perfect walks into the store, and you tell yourself you’ll take it home if no one buys it by Friday. Then someone buys it on Thursday.
This is a rumination on my mistake as a practice of self-soothing. Not the kind of mistake that crashes the inventory system, but the quieter ones. The ones you feel when you stare at an empty shelf and realize you had a chance to steal from yourself and didn’t take it. Things I told myself I didn’t need. Some I can’t even find again online. I check sometimes.
The Hinderer Half-Track Wharncliffe
Built like it was designed to survive the end of something. The Wharncliffe blade had no curve, no apology. Just a straight, unforgiving line. Everything about it felt overbuilt. Frame, hardware, clip, even the washers. Opening it felt like rotating a steel joint from some forgotten Cold War machine. The lockup was geological.
It reminded me of my Extrema Ratio Fulcrum-C. Not in shape or style, but in that same unnerving way it refused to be breakable. Like you could wedge it into a bulkhead and still have it open mail afterward. I never even carried it. Just handled it at the bench now and then like some sacred relic. Then one day it was gone. Sold online. No name. No story. Just vanished into the void, probably into a drawer, or worse, a waterproof case labeled “EDC”.
I still think about it when I pick up something that tries to feel tough and doesn’t quite get there. Most don’t.
