Historical re-enactors get a lot of stick, with the general line being that it’s a nerdy hobby.

But if it brings joy to a person’s life, what is the problem? After all, what are we here for, if not to enjoy the one life we get?

The guy in this story was a re-enactor, with parts of the hobby infiltrating his everyday life.

But the way he reacted to a drama on the night shift?

Not nerdy at all.

Read on to find out what happened.

Not my tale of getting robbed, but that of a friend.

So, my friend is a SCA re-enactor who does the heavy list competition, and at one point he was working at a gas station.

That means that he was training for medieval-style fighting with retan swords and full plate armor. He was wearing chainmail under his shirt for weight training.

Cue the scene. It’s late at night, my friend is working the counter at a gas station in a run-down part outside of town.

It’s about 11:00 PM. A guy in his mid-twenties comes into the store wearing a hoodie and jeans, with the hood up and his hands in the front pocket.

Uh-oh. This doesn’t sound good.

The guy walks around the back of the store for a bit, but there’s nobody else there. His hands never come out of the hoodie pocket, and he looks a bit fidgety.

My friend was getting nervous at this point, because he’d worked in the gas station for a while at that point. He knew how things like this worked.

Of course, the guy came up to the front desk, and asked for some cigarettes, which were directly behind my friend. My friend didn’t take his eyes off the guy, but looked in a mirror he had set up behind the counter and reached back up for the cigarettes.

Of course, that’s right when the knife came out. The guy pulled out a switchblade, and screamed “Give me all the money in the register, or I’ll slash you.”

Yikes! Let’s see what happened next.

Now, my friend, being tired and angry, just looked at him and said “Alright”, while moving his chest forwards.

Right then, the guy slashed at his chest. The switchblade skittered off the chainmail, and the guy went pale.

What did my friend do then? He said “How about you leave now, before the police show up. I called them already.” This was a total lie, there wasn’t a alarm button under the counter.

So, then the guy bolted for the door, grabbing a fistful of candy as he went. Seriously though, he grabbed a handful of candy. I guess he wanted to at least get something.

Wow. If this guy’s friend hadn’t been wearing chainmail this could have been a whole different situation.

He’s lucky that he happened to be training with it that day.

Imagine the robber’s face – and the fact that he will never truly understand what happened.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person revealed that sadly, some employers don’t allow armor.

While this Redditor shared a similar story.

But others were concerned about how this could have otherwise gone.

It sucks that someone working an honest job was at the risk of violence, and that workers on the night shift are put in such dangerous positions.

Really, working your job should be safe any time of day or night, and it’s a travesty that this is not the reality for some.

This guy got lucky, but how many haven’t?

You enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who was fired “as a joke,” but went ahead and walked out anyway.