I Need a Quarterstaff

People watching downtown Minneapolis never ceases to amaze & inspire me.

Sometimes the inspiration is to run fast & far away, but thankfully this particular instance did not send me fast-walking away in horror.

Just as I was walking in the doors, I noticed someone walking briskly down the sidewalk going pat, pat, TICK, pat, pat, TICK, pat, pat, TICK...

No, she wasn't drumming as she walked or hitting herself on her flank as if she was riding a pretend cowhorse or even impersonating an analog clock.

That's my approximation of what her walk sounded like as she approached.

The TICK was coming from the tall walking staff she was using to move down the sidewalk. Not just any walking stick, either, but a real God's-honest staff, complete with a funky-cool knob on top and possibly some runic designs carved into its length.

For all appearances, this staff was not needed to help her walk in any way. True, it is winter in Minnesota, but we've yet to have any snow stick *knock on wood* so using a staff isn't required, just yet, to navigate the snow-piles that tend to accumulate on the sidewalks as winter wears on and the MN dept of transportation is running out of places to put the damn stuff.

Immediately I started thinking....

Does she carry this staff to make an artsy-fartsy statement of some kind?
Is she carrying this staff to go to a class on staff-carving?
Does she carry the staff to get attention?
Is she carrying the staff to fend off unwanted men hitting on her?

Eventually I decide that this must not be a neat-o walking staff, but instead is an actual quarterstaff!

This seems much more fun than thinking she's just a bit odd.

Quarterstaffs were my favorite go-to weapon when I first started playing D&D. You have two ends to hit with and as it's a simple weapon almost any character can use one, plus having to obtain a new one is easy if you lose or break your old one. Just find any likely tree, cut it down, scrape off the bark & extra branches and do some smoothing and...VOILA! Brand new goblin-thumping weapon at your service.

My favorite old-school D&D character, a ranger by the name of Tail-Kinker, even got hers modified with blades on the end to deal extra damage when in combat. (I had a very tolerant DM at the time, who not only allowed me to play a made-up race of my own that was basically a humanoid kitty-cat, but also indulged me in letting her turn into any type or size feline if she took a full round action to "meow" and transform. Of course whenever she changed, her gear didn't change with her, so my adventuring PC friends were forced to grab my stuff frequently, seeing as how in feline form I had no opposable thumbs...and there was the tricky aspect that I would be naked when I transformed back....but I digress).

For some reason the thought that this lady was walking around with a deadly weapon hidden in plain sight as she strolled around downtown in the middle of the day tickled my funnybone. Would she get flack for having it on the bus? Would the police that regularly patrol certain areas of downtown tell her she has to peace-holster her stick?

And most of all, does she know how to use that thing properly?

I'll fully admit that while Tail-Kinker knew which end of the stick was what, I personally have no knowledge other than that you whap them with the hard end.

But I'm guessing that if I decided to start carrying a quarterstaff to protect my innocence on the mysterious and sometimes dangerous bus through the bad part of town, it would come in handy, no matter how little I know about actually wielding it effectively.

After all, can you see a random thug/drug dealer/miscreant on the 22 bus through N.Mpls being able to react quickly to a twirling staff? The delay as they pause to figure out what the heck I'm doing as I jump around and swing my quarterstaff should give me enough of a head start to get the hell away.

And if that doesn't work, I'll thump them with the stiff end. Either that, or use it to pole-vault myself ahead to get a lead on them.