My phone-wallet-keys method keeps me leaving the house prepared more than anything else in life. In fact, it’s this mental behavioral technique that keeps me (wrongfully) thinking I’m an actual grown adult. The full list is phone, wallet, keys, knife, water bottle, sunglasses!

My phone is the victim of abuse

Even despite the Otterbox I gift her on a nearly yearly basis, she goes through a real struggle in her day to day. The cover’s rubber material always ends up peeling, the home button plastic wears out, and its screen is scratched and smudged. She reaches low battery mode halfway through the day every day, and tells me I type too fast by refusing to type half of my letters. She closes out apps, ignores me when I try to wake her up and stays black for a few minutes, and randomly decides to lose service altogether in protest.

That’s cause she’s my best girl, and to be honest? Her planned obsolescence is her baggage. I’ve done my best to give her all the support she needs – regularly updating her, not keeping iCloud on for everything, so I refuse to take responsibility for her feelings.

Lazy, homebody wallet scared of everything

For real though, my wallet and Princess Mango could be best friends, if they ever lived on the same plane of existence. And by plane, I mean literally vertically from floor level, Mango lives quite near zero and my wallet lives from hip-to-eye level at all times. However, each of them have their designated resting places and are entirely uninterested in spending time anywhere else. My wallet sleeps either in the side pouch of my lunchbox that I take to work, or in the keys and wallet stand basket near our front door. Mango has at least two blanket beds arranged specifically for her underneath side tables, two sun spots, her cat scratcher box, a couple of awkward corners that she stalks us from, and the gym floor for stretches.

Who needs a purse when you have a carabiner?

Sometime in high school, I found – literally, found on the ground of Tate street – a mountain climber carabiner that I have since attached my entire life to. I have a healthy faerie fascination with keys, and so experience a particular pleasure from filling my carabiner with the jingling beauties.

I am also especially proud of having a set of school bus keys… It validates me being the true nomad skoolie lifer that I am (want to be).

New Knife Alert

You never know when a knife could come in handy. My stepdad gifted me my orange knife for Christmas not too many years ago, and it’s already gotten wobbly and dull many a time.

So I bought a second knife; one for work, one for… play? Pete and I were on our way back from Asheville after a week long backpacking excursion and stopped into a gas station with a display of knives. I asked the guy how much they cost and he just laughed at me. I’m not sure if he simply didn’t hear me the first time, but then I repeated myself and he just laughed again. Pete just stared at him confusedly and the guy just stared us right back, until Pete eventually said something along the lines of, “She asked how much the knives are.”

The guy snapped into reality and told us they were fifteen bucks! What a reasonable deal for such cool knives, I thought, and snagged the one with a skull.

Hydrate or Diedrate

Yeah, yeah, you’re probably thinking you drink enough water. I don’t care what you say, I don’t believe you. No one ever really drinks enough water. Carry a water bottle around with you and you’ll automatically drink more, even if just to make the load lighter.

Sneaky little shades

It’ll be five till my clock-in time at work, I’m still at home, I’ve patted myself down and confirmed phone-wallet-keys-knife, water bottle in had, but where are my shades?

I usually hang them on a purse next to the front door, but sometimes leave them on the coffee table if ever I come home and collapse. But the shades aren’t there either.

Maybe they’re on my vanity? I rush into our bedroom in the back of the apartment, check places I have never left my sunglasses, and still nothing.

Art studio? Not there. Weight rack in the gym? Nothing.

I desist, and go to my car, which is likely already running. I then immediately forget I was even looking for my sunglasses and, driving east in the morning, reach for them on the top of my head and slide them down over my eyes.

Takes a few minutes for me to figure out what even happened.

Phone, Wallet, Keys: A Method

I beat this method into my brother by berating him every time he left any one of the three before leaving the house.