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So often when I'm bored, or sometimes just whenever I'm holding knife or a pair of scissors, I'll get the urge to just shave the corners off of my desk or bookshelf. Many objects have fallen prey to this habit and I have no idea why I do it although it's kinda satisfying. Anyone else do this?
Stop ruining furniture & start whittling with wood offcuts. Be creative.
A buddy of mine used to do something similar. Good old Carl. Carvin' Carl is what we used to call him.
One day his dad got him a pocket knife. One of those flippy butterfly knives. He would always mess with it during class, during lunch, while walking down the hall. Hell, I think I even heard him flicking it in the bathroom one day. He couldn't stop.
Shop class was his favorite time of the day. His projects were always simple, but he'd always carve really intricate patterns into whatever it was he was making. Spider webs, mazes, even complex lace patterns. The guy was a genius.
It started to get a bit troublesome for him after a while, though. Shop class projects were few and far-between, so he had to find something else to do in the meantime. He usually kept himself busy by carving the desks. He'd always do it very inconspicuously and no one ever really saw him do it, but everyone knew it was him. You'd come into class one morning and your desk would have an entire world map carved into it. The kid had talent.
One day the teachers thought up a plan. They called him into the principal's office and confiscated any sharp instrument they found on him. He kept denying any involvement in the carving incidents but the teachers didn't believe him. They said that if that were true, then all of the carving should stop now that they confiscated his tools. Carl just shrugged and said "ok", and insisted that the carving would continue uninterrupted.
He was right. The next day some kid's desk had an entire Peanuts comic strip carved into it. They gave Carl 2 weeks detention.
A few days later someone carved "Zoso" on a desk. Another week of detention for Carl.
To prove his innocence he asked a teacher to follow him around for the next week to prove that he wasn't doing anything. The teacher tailed him and found no wrong doing on Carl's part, and during that same week someone managed to carve "IRON MAIDEN" into one of the lockers.
The teachers begged Carl for forgiveness and undid his punishment. They still kept his knife, though, since that wasn't allowed in school, but they didn't punish him for it to make up for all the unfair detention they had given him.
I asked Carl what he thought about the vandal, and if he thought they were copying him or something. He offered his take on the matter.
"I don't really know" he said. "The guy's really inconsistent. He does something really impressive one day, and the next he scratches something really crude and stupid. No consistency. You can still tell a lot about him, though. For example, the Zoso carving." He leaned towards me and said that he could tell a lot from that one carving, like some kind of NCIS guy. State of mind, intent, everything.
About the Zoso markings, he thought for a while and said
"Well, you can tell by the way it was done that someone in a cultivated moment of distress composed themselves enough to artfully carve "Zoso" in his desk. They was probably thinking 'Fuck you Fuck you Fuck you' i they head, with a Hell-bound arm in an acidy wash, homemade curfue of a thousand 'o clock and the pot-lea tattoo his fried did drunk like a badge of mystique though it technically sucked. Taking the name of the father in vain on the way to the blade in his locker estranged, a shiv he lifted from his sibling's skivvy drawer, who branched off into ninja stars and never knew his shit was sharked. To here with a higher purpose and a prime alert to juvenile berserkers like Crocea Mors in an arcade drop claw gouging a valentine for Miss Othmar."
He explained the mark stroke by stroke
"Watch. Capital Zed, slowly maneuver the O, S is the most difficult to control, finally O, into the eye of Goliath you go. That levy crushin' percusssion'll pull the monkey upright. Twelve or ghetto blaster, black or technicolor Telecaster. Lecture at a faster rate than class was making him develop backwards, it would appear you spelled out all the answers."
Wow! I exclaimed. All that from that one carving?
"No" he said. I just know Tony did it.
Carve on, you crazy diamond. It's normal.