In
the previous post, discussing a WaPo article about various characters in the January 6th incident at the U.S. Capitol, we encountered a man named Pete Harding, who "said that the only weapon he carried was a dinner fork, which he put in his pocket." He said — humorously, I
think — "Fortunately, I didn’t have to wield the kitchen fork menacingly."
So I want to look into the topic of the fork as a weapon. When I was a college student and went through a phase of thinking I might take a course in "creative" writing, I considered writing a story about a perfectly friendly dinner between 2 characters that somehow escalated into a murder scene, with the fork as the weapon. Why not the knife?! The knife isn't interesting. The fork would be interesting, no?
Interesting — but way too much work! Too much work to write the description. And, of course, too much work to commit murder with a fork. But it would be a gruesome scene. It's for someone else to scribble out details like that. Like Harding's fork, my fork story remained in my pocket, unbrandished.
But is a fork a plausible weapon? There's something called a
military fork:
But we're talking about the table utensil of our time.
I see that using a fork to fight is common enough in popular culture to have a page to itself at TV Tropes:
[I]f chaos breaks out at the dinner table, a diner may have to get creative with what they have on hand, turning their utensils into an Improvised Weapon. Normally played for laughs (especially if there's Sword Sparks), but if the chips are down, things can get pretty ugly: this can lead to sickeningly devastating effect in the hands of someone skilled/determined enough.... Subtrope of Improvised Weapon. Compare Frying Pan of Doom....
That sounds funny, but remember that an improvised weapon — a fire extinguisher — was [allegedly] used at the Capitol and it killed a police officer.
