Reorganizing my pocket

For those of you who don't hang out with me regularly, I carry a ton of crap in my pockets. In my left pocket I have carried my cell phone, metal card case, business card holder, and on occasion a lighter. In my right pocket has been my keys with my Buck Whittaker Revolution-XT knife, pocket pen, and money clip. It is a lot of stuff and most people can't believe I carry that much around with me.

Well, that has changed. I just reorganized my pocket so that I no longer need to carry around my metal card case. While there might be some "awww" comments from people since most really liked that stylish case. But it has been beaten up pretty badly since I bought that case in SF with my dad when we visited Cal. Plus it is not needed since my business card holder has enough slots in it to hold all of my cards in an organized fashion; I have business cards, credit/debit cards, non-photo IDs, photo IDs, and cash cards (Starbucks, Jamba Juice, etc.).

But don't fret that my pockets will become unfunctional from this reorg! Me being me, this is all so that I can more easily fit in a Rhodia notepad in there. Currently, when I need to jot a note to myself while out and about I whip out a business card and write on the back. That is just plain wasteful and business cards don't absorb ink well. As for when I need to take notes along with me, such as a shopping list, I put it on a Post-It and stick it to the back of my metal card case. The problem with that is the length of a Post-It is a little too long and it doesn't always stay put. Plus it requires pulling out my metal case to check the list and that tends to pop the Post-It off. So here is to hoping a proper notepad will solve that issue.

As for my left pocket, that could be pruned down as well. The money clip and pen cannot shrink; they are already as minimal as possible while still being functional. My keychain is what could be cut down. In terms of keys I don't need to keep my house keys to my mother on there, especially after I leave California. My flash drive could stand to be shorter, but that is not a big deal.

The thing in my left pocket that takes up a ton of space is my Buck knife. It is 17.2 cm (6 3/4 in.) long. Not exactly a puny thing. But the handiness of having a knife on me has become so apparent I refuse to not have a knife on my keychain short of airport security forcing me to leave it behind. The other issue is that I have a knife on my keychain so as to add size and heft to it to minimize the chance of losing my keys.

This puts me in the predicament of not being willing to lose trade down to a small knife. I want one that is big enough to make it obvious that I have my keys in my pocket, but not so long as to cause me issue. What are my options?

First, Leatherman knives are out of the question. While being extremely sturdy, I hate their mechanism of using your nail to pull out a tool from the body. My nails are not strong and I have torn off parts of my nails enough times to not want to go through that again.

That leaves Buck. There are three knives that meet the size/length requirements while still being a great deal shorter than my current knife. The Approach is just a standard knife. The Short Approach is just a shorter version of the Approach (shocking, I know). Finally, the Summit is the swiss-army knife of Buck Whittaker knives; knife, corkscrew, can/bottle opener, screwdriver. All three have a lanyard loop.

My leanings is toward the Summit. My Revolution-XT's bottle opener has been handy for popping open the random beer. Having a screwdriver would be nice as well; one of the reasons I kept my Leatherman in my bag even after I got my Buck was for the screwdrivers. Unless something drastic happens I will probably replace my Revolution-XT with a Summit the next time I am at an REI or Any Mountain.

The partial trick, though, is to get a quick-release keychain for it. The main reason I got the Revolution-XT instead of the Buck knife my brother has (I think it is the Short Approach) is because of the carry clip over a lanyard loop. It has allowed quick removal from my keychain for easy handling of the knife while in use. In order to overcome that with a lanyard loop I will need one of those quick release keychains like my father has for the car to make the Summit's use easy.

So how many people do you know actually put the time into analyzing the organization of their pockets? =)