Knight in Shining Armor: Millennium Style

On a recent shoe-shopping trip with a girl friend, as we sat barefoot on a quilted ottoman contemplating dozens of pairs of shoes in dizzying colors strewn about the floor, an image of Prince Charming slipping the glass slipper on Cinderella’s foot popped into my mind.

“You think knights in shining armor and princes charming still exist today?” I asked her. She snapped her head to face me and with a raised eyebrow said, “You on something? Stupid question, so here’s your stupid answer: there’s Osama Bin Laden, there’s the Bali bombers, there’s George Bush, there’s O.J. Simpson…sure, yeah, they exist.” She then proceeded to pay for her one-pair purchase while I walked out empty handed. Shocked? Well, we were both under the weather that day so the shoes stayed in the store.

Because I thoroughly enjoyed my friend’s reaction, I ventured to ask other people the same question, not necessarily in search of answers, but for the entertainment value that their facial expressions and sarcasm may dish out.

But first, I had to set parameters with which to define the term “knight in shining armor” in the event that I am asked to be more specific. Here’s what I came up with: according to www.phrases.org.uk knight in shining armor means, a person, usually a man, who comes to the aid of another, usually a woman, in a gallant and courteous manner.
The present-day use of this phrase is, of course, figurative and refers back to the notion of gallant knights saving fair maidens in distress. The reality behind that imagery is dubious and no doubt owes much to the work of those Victorian novelists and painters who were captivated by the chivalrous ideal of an imagined court of Camelot. Nevertheless, knights did wear armor, and that worn by royalty and the high nobility was highly polished and did in fact gleam and shine.

Today, it may simply mean, according to www.idioms.thefreedictionary.com someone who helps you when you are in a difficult situation.

And so I asked a thirty-something cousin if she believed in present-day knights in shining armor by first defining its modern meaning, which, simply put, is a helpful man and she said, “Whatever. You can define and simplify it all you want, there are no knights in shining armor, duh! It’s all about female empowerment, as in, do it for yourself and by yourself.” That was pretty cutting, so I moved on.

I bumped into an old French teacher, who is now in her late sixties and asked her the same thing. She said, “Yes, he lives in my mind. The real knight I have at home snores, won’t help me with carrying grocery bags unless I threaten to eat the sinigang na bangus belly before he gets to it, and once handed me the screw driver when I asked him to help mend my broken eyeglass frame. But oh, in my mind, he looks like the young Robert Redford in Out of Africa and he would slay lions for me. The one at home wouldn’t even scrunch out a cockroach to stop me from screaming; he just hands me a rolled up newspaper.

I was unfazed. I knew someone out there would be a positivist like me, so I forged on. At the beach with some friends two weekends ago, I met somebody’s 23-year old niece—a pretty girl who had just landed her first job. Over margaritas, I asked her the same question. “Sure there are,” she answered, “good looking men atop cantering white stallions with swords drawn. The problem is, they just keep galloping past me or if at all they stop, they do so just long enough to cause heartache and then move on to their next conquest.” Oh no, I thought to myself, so young yet already so jaded.

Done with females, I badgered a 46-year old male friend to share his thoughts on the matter. “What? Knight in what? That’s the problem with you women, you romanticize everything. We will help you when we can, if we have the time, and we don’t need no armor to do it. What else? Ha? Slay dragons? Mosquitos pwede pa.” No luck here either.

Desperate at this point, I went to my all time go-to guy: my brother. “You think there are modern-day knights in shining armor?” I asked. He hunched his shoulders, shook his head and said, “Ano nanamang kalokohan yan?” He gets exasperated because of the many social experiments I conduct for this column and with him always as guinea pig. “Nothing, I’m just asking.” Of course I was lying. He took a few moments to consider the question then said, “Yeah, me. I’m that by default because you’re always in trouble. I’m always having to rescue you.” “And you feel bad about it?” I snapped at him like a spoiled brat. “No, but please try to space the incidents out so I get some reprieve, okay?” he teased.

After we spoke I contemplated what he had said. He was right, like he always is. I do run to him for anything and everything and each time he was there for me. The last time this happened was when he was all the way in South Africa. He asked me over the phone, “Do you need me there?” I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to impose. Nevertheless he said, “I’ll catch the next flight out. I can be there in 36 hours.” And he was. Plus, he never fails to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. Everything will be alright.”

Just before I sat down to write this piece, I mentioned to my 12-year-old daughter over dinner that there might not be knights in shining armor anymore in this post-modern world. She disagreed, “That’s not true Mom. Remember that man in the Seattle airport shuttle who helped you?” That is one story that merits a retelling a hundred times over.

A year ago, I was in an airport shuttle in Seattle. The bus was half full and the atmosphere was serene. Directly behind me was a young man, 20-ish, his ears plugged into an iPod, his hands, thumbing his PSP. I reclined my seat back to get comfortable as we rolled along and started reading a book when I felt a pounding behind me. I turned around and saw him kicking my seat. I said nicely, “Excuse me, please try not to do that, thanks.” This only provoked him to kick harder. Then in a raised voice he said, “Put your seat back up! Put it up; I need leg room!” The entire busload of passengers looked at him, which only made him shout louder, “Put up the seat!”

“No thanks,” I answered. “I like it the way it is.” He then let out a barrage of expletives, complaining how cramped he was. So I explained in a normal tone that it was my seat and I had the right to do with it as I pleased, that half the passengers on the bus had their seats reclined, and that no one else was complaining. After I had turned back around and resumed my position, he raised both feet onto my headrest, hitting the top of my head in the process.

“Could you not do that?” I said, now trembling with anger.

He answered, “No, they’ll stay there until you put up your seat.”

“Had you asked nicely in the first place, you would be enjoying more leg room by now, but no thanks. The seat stays reclined.”

At this point, I was livid and ready for anything. Then, from out of the blue, somewhere off to my right, a huge man (over six feet and over 200 pounds), mid-30s, whom I oddly did not notice before, screamed at him in defense of me. “Leave the lady alone!” The manboy attempted to argue with him but the gentle giant said, “It’s her seat; if you have a problem move somewhere else. But leave her alone. You got that?” The manboy didn’t as much as breathe after the forceful dressing-down he got.

But then the deed doesn’t have to be all that dramatic for a man to be considered a knight. Random acts of kindness—so rare these days—are enough to merit a knight’s title: a helping hand; a sincere inquiry about how one’s day went; a please or a thank you; a big, warm hug; or in my case these very words—eleven of them: “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. Everything will be alright.” He might not be able to fulfill all of that or even half of that but the gesture itself and those soothing words always manage to assuage fear and anxiety and appease a troubled heart. It’s works like magic.

There are modern-day knights in shining armor. Believe me; there are.