Every Day Carry
As may have been clear from my post yesterday, I’m fastidious about what I carry with me day-to-day. There are exactly five objects that I will always have if I don’t have to clear airport security: key, wallet, watch, phone, lighter.
My housekey is a little Yale-style thing, carried without a keyring, fob or any other keys. I only ever supplement this when I’m at work, when there is the addition of two other keys on a split-ring with no extras.
My wallet I wrote about yesterday: small, light, unobtrusive and carrying only a debit card and driving licence. I offload any coins worth less than a pound at every opportunity, and carry notes – if I feel the need – loose in a back pocket.
My watch is very dear to me: it was given to me for my birthday twenty years ago, and has been through many different straps over the years. Currently, it sports a simple brown leather strap with a deployment clasp. I like the low profile and lack of fussiness of this combination, and it carries the added benefit of never catching my arm hair in the strap.
My phone is my main computing device, on balance: I’m writing this post on it, and use it for everything up to and including ssh’ing into my VPS to publish and update my website. Excellently versatile, excellently small.
The lighter is an odd choice: I don’t smoke, and so my stated reason for carrying it has always been “pyromania”. The truth is, this is my most prized possession because of its origin story and the inscription on it. I keep it fuelled, and pack in a spare flint and wick under the cotton pad inside. There’s also a fishhook in there: as I’ve said before, I’m preparing for the apocalypse, and this one treasured item is my emergency survival kit, in combination with the paracord laces I put in my boots. If you want to make sure you’re prepared, treasure the things you need.
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