2023-01-19 5 Things I Carry Every Day

I’m always wildly curious about what people carry around to make their day easier, or just in case they need something in an emergency or in an unexpected situation.

So, today, I thought I’d share a few things I have in my bag and you might find interesting.

Maybe then you’ll share with me what you carry around, and I can get some new ideas.

I’ll skip the basic, obvious stuff: I carry a phone (actually two), and maybe I’ll talk about how they’re set up another time. I usually carry my keys, glasses, sunglasses if it’s bright, that kind of stuff. Cool. I almost always carry a laptop, which has also its specific setup. But what else?

1. A deck of cards. I use cards like other people use fidget spinners. I just do shuffles, double lifts, cuts, more shuffles, and so on while working, waiting for the bus, listening to podcasts or whatever. I find it satisfying. I have a stash of Bycicle basic cards at home, and I make sure I have a deck in decent conditions in my bag.
2. Liquorice roots. Ok, liquorice root is a pleonasm: “liquorice” is greek for “sweet root”, so there you go. But these are actual sticks of wood. Basically, twigs you chew on and taste sweet and nice. It’s a fairly common treat where I’m from, and it reminds me of childhood.
3. Nitrile gloves. They might stay put in my bag for months, but you never know when you’ll need to help someone bleeding, or fish out a mobile phone from a public toilet. They‘re cheap and lightweight, and a no brainer for me.
4. A flashlight with a red light option. Red light is useful for not losing night vision, for example while driving (actually, don’t use the flashlight if you’re driving, let your passenger do that for you). White, strong light is great to just see stuff clearly outdoors. I like sturdy, waterproof, cheap ones because I’m super clumsy and I’ll drop stuff all the time.
5. A notebook, a fountain pen and a rotating pencil. Ok, I’ll admit I’m a bit of a stationery geek here. I’ve tried a ton of options. Here’s what I settled on so far (and recommend):
   – Book: the wonderful Dingbats dotted book. Pick any color and animal front you like. Pages have a subtle perforation so you can easily rip one out if you’re on the go and need to leave a note somewhere (yeah, I know, for some that’s blasphemy. I still don’t care.)
   – Pen: the super fine nib Hongdian H3. I use Waterman deep black ink in it.
   – Pencil: my absolute favourite is the Uni Kuru Toga mechanical pencil. I received it as a present, and I adore it. The peculiarity of this pencil is that as you write (or rather, whenever you lift up the pencil), the lead rotates a tiny bit, and so it stays always perfectly sharp.

Ok, those are 5 (actually 7) items I generally carry with me. There’s more, but these are the fun ones in my opinion.

What are yours? Anything interesting and intriguing you never leave home without?