Bloganuary 2024, Day 6: His & Hers Advil

Yesterday’s Tarot reading was a MASSIVE SUCCESS I ASSUME, and just for funzies and out of my seething envy of the Sesamarot‘s success¹, I’ll make it a weekly feature if this post gets a single solitary like. This is, of course, most unlikely during the notorious interaction dry-spell that is Bloganuary, but perhaps fate will be kind or, if history holds true, at least hilarious.

TODAY, I do a different thing for Bloganuary², a topic that is definitely gonna be a big who-cares for a lot of people but is something I’m always interested to see when other people do it:

That’s right fools: it’s EDC (Every Day Carry) time. It’s a fun thing to be into if you steer clear of the super-knifey, pseudomilitaristic side, and most of them are just pretty chill gear-nerds. It occurs to me just now that I probably should’ve started with what I keep in my pockets, but I work from home, so most often what’s in my pajama pockets is the baby raccoon I’m nursing back to health in hopes of being repaid with several summers of friendship and memories³. But my number of cats that’s none of your friggin’ business do necessitate fairly regular vet trips (hot tip, pet insurance is real, surprisingly affordable, pays for itself almost immediately, and means your wee furry pals will have more regular checkups which means better health⁴), and having my a good bag and set of gear suited to my needs is essential when one hand is occupied by a carrier filled with a MROWROWROW and the other needs to take notes and pay and hold my emergency doctor’s-office hamburger⁵.

The perhaps inevitably-named NutSac⁶ (you have to give it to ’em: they saw their chance and took it⁷) is the best bag I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot, even ThinkGeek⁸‘s Bag of Holding, which held so much it literally caused me back problems. This is slim but roomy thanks to its flat bottom, has one body-length zipper-pocket on the front under the flap, one on the interior rear wall, and two smaller, shallower pockets on the interior front wall; enough for everything I need, not enough to slow me down during a chase scene, drag me to a watery grave, or make the strap cut into my neck.

Let’s crack ‘er open!

(Nota bene: Listen, I don’t want this post to sound like it’s full of sweaty advertisements for companies that don’t know I exist, but like Ron Swanson, I only promote products I believe in and/or use exclusively, and that same standard applies to what I carry on me. I believe that good companies and good products deserve appreciation and recognition, but I am not a shill, and being thought of that way would make me sad. Perhaps even melancholy. I would be a melancholy shill.)

Clockwise from top-center:

• A Tak Tavern-Pieces set (with cloth board that doesn’t appear to be available anymore), in case She Who Is My Wife and I are early at the opera, or get stranded in a stalled elevator, or have to best the Devil in a game of skill for the souls trapped in the ice-water mansions of Lake Superior. I’ve also always had a dream of being stuck like at the airport or something, striking up a conversation with a stranger, and teaching them the Beautiful Game, but let us be honest: that idea requires going places, and I will refer you again to the lifestyle I lead in honor of my comfyman ancestors⁹.
  
  
• A Vitamin World-brand six-compartment pill case, my only memento from working there¹⁰; currently filled with His & Hers Advil.
  
  
• A collapsible blue cup, in case I meet a dog who needs water, an elder who needs to take their pills, or that Diet Coke geyser my brother better not have been joking about.
  
  
• A charging-cable (USB to Lightning/MicroUSB) and wall-brick (black circle and white–the–look you know what a wall-brick looks like).
  
  
• A Gerber fire-starter, offering flint and steel and a lanyard with whistle (and a couple of Morse Code notes).
  
  
• A wee nylon sbag stuffed into–into the–y’know I’ve never actually opened this, so I’m not sure if it’s in a separate bag or if like–does it fold in on itself? That–I don’t think I was meant to know this. Maybe one day, when I need to buy a dozen FunkoPops with profanely-misprinted packaging, or kidnap what I realize probably isn’t a real-life Pokémon, but is that a chance I can really afford to take?
  
  
• Collapsible utensils, because one never knows when an omelet might be an option.
  
  
• Air Deck narrow playing cards; see entry on Tak-set, except here the Devil is trying to do some kind of tax-thing and seems to be trying to lose, but you don’t kn–like, you’re supposed to win at this game, but is he–does this change what ‘win’ means? Is there any way you can win this? Or is that what he wants?
  
  
• My emergengy copy of John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley in Search of America, my Favorite Book (Subcategory: Nonfiction). I reread Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat at least once a year, but Travels is a really, really special book that meant a lot to me the first time I read it as a young man, so special I can’t bring myself to risk that specialness by reading it too much, which has the added benefit of meaning I won’t find myself starting it in a Reading Emergency and find myself bored by something I know too well; the same reason my Emergency Book isn’t The Way of Kings¹¹.
  
  
• Paper Republic’s Grand Voyageur with dot-grid notebook insert, for taking notes on the fly. The idea was that this would be a catch-all on-the-go notebook for any and everything I might learn or encounter and I would later transfer its information to more specific, permanent locations, but since (as mentioned) I mostly take this to the vet, it’s just full of notes on how Tiramisu J. Cat is smol and, medically speaking, almost too handsome, and also doodles of his stupid perfect little face.

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AND NOW my friends, well-wishers, and enemies whose grudging respect I have earned: good night. And good luck.

–The Bageler

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deleted with

1. Obviously joking, Store-Brand God bless that dude and the good work he’s doing
2. The prompts just aren’t putting any pepper in my steppers this year (sorry WP team) so it’s time to get WEIRD
3. Did you know raccoons react to laser-pointers the same way cats do? 100% true, this is not a joke, I lived in the woods for two years and we’d spend entire winter evenings scrumbling those stripey bastards around with a red dot on the snow
4. MetLife Pet Insurance: Not my sponsor, but if they’d like to be!
5. SHUT UP, VETS ARE DOCTORS
6. Also not my sponser, but if they’d also like to be!
7. NutSac, while never pretending to be anything they aren’t, are kind enough to offer bags with their acorn logo but NOT their name; preesh, buds
8. RSVP
9. Comfy…mancestors
10. And I mean ONLY; after I heard my boss describe a capsacin supplement as “literally melting fat away with its heat” to a customer, I jettisoned everything about that job except my memories of reading when I should’ve been working
11. Well, that and the spinal damage it caused