Alright, so some of you were asking about that machete zombie knife project I had going on. Thought I’d share the whole messy story from start to, well, wherever it ended up. It was quite a journey, let me tell you.
I kicked things off feeling pretty damn ambitious. Got my hands on a solid piece of old leaf spring steel – tough stuff, perfect for what I had in mind. Spent a good few hours just sketching, trying to get the lines right. Not too fancy, but definitely something that would look mean enough to make a zombie pause. My goal was practical, not just a pretty wall decoration. I wanted something I could actually, you know, theoretically chop things with.
The first real step was getting the basic shape cut out. Man, that was a workout. Used an angle grinder, sparks flying everywhere. Made a heck of a racket. I was out there in the garage, feeling like some kind of suburban Hephaestus, minus the actual divine skill, of course. I got the rough profile done, a bit crude, but it had potential. I even started thinking about how I’d do the bevels, the handle, the whole shebang.
And Then Came the “Zombies”
Just when I was getting into the rhythm, starting to really enjoy the process of wrestling with that piece of steel, the real challenge appeared. And no, it wasn’t the undead, though sometimes I wish it had been. It was my neighbor, Agnes. Agnes, who had a finely tuned radar for anything in the neighborhood louder than a falling leaf or more interesting than beige paint.
She must have heard the grinder. Probably thought I was building a doomsday device or something equally disruptive to her afternoon tea. Next thing I know, there’s a polite, yet incredibly firm, note taped to my door. All about ‘community noise ordinances’ and ‘concerns about the nature of the activities’ in my garage. Suddenly, my zombie knife project had an antagonist.
So, the actual work on the knife just… stopped. My practical ‘practice’ in metalwork turned into a crash course in diplomacy and decoding passive-aggressive neighborhood communications. It was unbelievable.
- First, it was the noise. I tried working at different times. No dice.
- Then, it was about ‘safety’. She was ‘worried’ about what I was making. Implied I was some kind of menace.
- I even tried to explain it was a hobby, like woodworking, but with more potential for tetanus, I guess.
Honestly, I spent more time drafting careful emails and having awkward conversations over the fence than I did with that piece of steel. The zombie knife just sat there on my workbench, collecting dust and, I imagine, a fair bit of judgment. Every time I looked at it, I just felt tired. The energy, the excitement I had at the start, it just got drained away by this constant, low-level hassle.
The whole thing dragged on for weeks. It felt like I was trying to fight a fog. There was nothing solid to push against, just this persistent, smothering disapproval. The ‘machete’ part of the project became a distant dream. It was all ‘zombie’ by that point, just me feeling like my brains were being slowly eaten by bureaucracy and busybodies.
In the end, I just gave up on it. The knife, I mean. It’s probably still in a box somewhere in the garage, unfinished. A monument to good intentions and the soul-crushing power of neighborhood politics. I learned a lot, that’s for sure. Just not much about knife making.
What I did learn is that sometimes the zombies you gotta watch out for aren’t the ones on TV. They’re the ones who suck the life out of you with rules and complaints until you just don’t have the fight left for the things you enjoy. So, yeah, that’s my machete zombie knife story. Not much chopping, a whole lot of coping. That’s just how it goes sometimes, right?