That's not a knife. THIS is a knife!

The other day at work, a guy came in off the street and proceeded to threaten one of my co-workers for no reason. Don't get the wrong idea; I don't work in what would be considered a "bad" neighborhood. Not that it matters. As we've all learned, although there are "good" and "bad" neighborhoods, violent crime and weird shit can happen anywhere, any time. This was (or more accurately, was almost) just one of those things.
The guy was obviously disturbed and having a bad day, I guess. The incident didn't last very long and he left right away without doing anything more severe. The whole thing happened so quickly that nobody reacted while he was there. But after he left, another of my co-workers went into a back room and came back with a machete, exactly like the one pictured here. My first thought was "why do we have a machete?", followed almost instantaneously by "why don't I have a machete?", because I've never had one and now I want one.
Aside from sugar plantations in Haiti that are plagued by voodoo-animated zombies, I'm not sure there are that many companies that are going to paste a "PROTECTED BY MACHETE" sticker on the front door. Pepper spray. A silent alarm system. Dobermans. All traditionally acceptable methods of defending the modern workplace and those who work there...for pussies.
A machete is the kind of defense system you probably only ever have to use once. Think about it: if some thug gets a limb hacked off while trying to commit a violent crime, that's the kind of story that is bound to circulate among, and give pause to, the denizens of your local underworld. If you think you're going to get that from an alarm that doesn't even make an irritating noise, an airborne eye irritant or a puppy dog, you are dreaming and seriously underestimating the resolve of the criminal element. Even a gun can't give you that. Shootings are so downright mundane anymore that, really, who gives a shit? No, there's only one way to be known as "That Place Where They Chopped That Dude's Arm Off, My Cousin Was In County With Him And He Told Me All About It".

Machete. Accept no substitute.