Air & Angels: Handbag/purse/backpack/WHATHAVEYOU meme
if you habitually carry around a handbag, purse, backpack or other bag with your DAY TO DAY LIFE STUFF in it, kindly itemise its contents here, as shall I
it will all be very revelatory
you do not have to count, like, old receipts and tissues but now would be a good time to get them out of your…
I’m going to count both my pocket-stuff and my backpack-stuff, but omit day-specific schoolbooks…
- Cell phone
- Keys (about a dozen, all of which I use)
- Half a dozen pens of my favorite ergonomic style
- Swiss Army knife
- Leather wallet with money, IDs, various plastic cards and gift certificates, and a USB thumb drive (for printing documents at school)
That’s all in my pockets. Backpack:
- Graphing calculator
- Checkbook
- Colored pencils
- “Clicker”, which is a polltaking device for school and looks rather like a remote control
- Wee portable pencil-sharpener, the kind that is just a plastic frame with a blade in
- iPod charger
- Receipts for all the textbooks I’ve rented this semester
- Day planner
- Hardcover address book with my To Read list in (this is a new experiment, suggested by Bookblather from LJ; my reading lists are always going missing)
- Small spiral-bound memo book with my shopping list in
- Thermos bottle full of peanut M&Ms for snacking on
- Water bottle
- Three or four unused pads in their wrappers
- and a bottle of OTC painkillers. ;P
Ooh, neat idea. Maybe by reading others’ posts I’ll find new Useful Things to add to my collection.
My own Useful Things collection, kept in a utility belt belly bag utility belt, in order of what I pulled out:
Main compartment:
- Some clean napkins
- A notebook, which is nearly full and I should replace it
- A big scrunchie (for ponytails, as opposed to small scrunchies that go at the bottom of braids)
- A paperback copy of Eric, by Terry Pratchett (emergency use only; I don’t have an e-reader)
- A pen
- An electronic dictionary, which also plays Hangman, is a calculator, and can tell you what day of the week a given day was/will be
- Wallet
- The one cell phone owned by my family, which is usually kept in Mom’s backpack
- A bottle of pumpkin-scented hand sanitiser from Bath and Body Works, which I haven’t yet used and forgot I had
- A tiny flashlight only good for reading by
- An Occupy Toronto flyer from November (I didn’t go)
- A plastic bag I got from the bulk section, which might come in handy
- A spare battery for the flashlight
- A comfortingly smooth honey-coloured rock
- A twisty tie
Front compartment:
- A miniature blue Sharpie
- A pair of clip-on sunglasses
- A one-metre tape measure
- Two packets of cranberry-almond biscotti
- A magnifying glass
- Six peppermints
- A tiny sowing kit consisting of a needle, six different colours of thread wrapped around some cardboard, a safety pin, and a button
- A penknife with scissors and tweezers
- A rubbery toy lizard
- A non-rubbery toy turtle
- A length of stretchy string (originally intended to be a bracelet) about…um…*uses tape measure* 16 in/40 cm long
- …you know what, I’m just going to throw away this five-year-old Tootsie Roll
- A couple inches of braided rope with one of those keychain loops at each end
- A paperclip
- Instructions on how to tie various knots
- A slice of blue agate, also comfortingly smooth and pretty
- A piece of amethyst that used to be a keychain before it broke (rocks are good, okay?)
Back compartment:
- One tampon
- Two menstrual pads
- Two panty liners
- Ziploc bags: one snack, one quart
- A Ziploc bag containing some wipes of the type used on babies’ butts, dried out but could probably be brought back to life with a bit of water
- A tightly-folded emergency poncho, never used
- A foil blanket, also never used
- A small geode (yay rocks!)
- …so that’s where my Star of David necklace went! (Like I’ll actually be able to dig it out in time if I happen to encounter a Jewish vampire. Also good (well, bad) for werewolves.)
Attached to the belt:
- Bike key
- House key
- P.O. box key
- Keychain shaped like a Samoa (I’m not very fond of them, but it was the only kind of cookie keychain they had left in stock)
- A pouch containing a penknife with fork, spoon, and corkscrew
- A bottle of hand sanitiser that I do use
- (not actually attached at the moment, but I always put it on before leaving the house) A pouch containing a Sansa (MP3 player), set of headphones, and docking cable (The Sansa also acts as a thumb drive to backup my diary.)
- A first aid bag
Inside the first aid bag:
- A tube of Polysporin
- Band-aid: one medium-large, three medium, two large/knee
- Five packets of alcohol wipes
- A Ziploc bag containing a disposable CPR mask
- Instructions on what to do in case of heat exhaustion, blisters, insect stings, and sprains
- Moleskin bandage
- Three pseudoephedrine tablets
- Two Dramamine tablets
- One Imodium tablet
- Another safety pin
- Two emergency quarters, though I can’t actually rely on pay phones existing
- A whistle-compass-mirror combo (it was the only spot I had space)
- A chocolate bar (ditto, though I could argue it’s medicinal)
- A tube of anti-itch ointment (the kind with Benadryl)
- A roll of gauze bandage
- An Ace bandage
- A small tube of sunscreen
- A lighter
- A container of floss, possibly to be used for string-related purposes
- Two pairs of gloves
- A small bottle of bug repellent
- A tiny hairbrush I forgot I had (again, too bulky to fit anywhere else)
Can you tell how proud I am of my collection? And that I’ve obtained a reputation for always having the right tool for the situation?
Tags:
#utility belt #meme #Useful Things
Brinens and Things 
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