There was a huge fad a couple years ago of converting the used Altoids tin into a survival kit or other things. In fact, I am sure I put a Raspberry Pi in one. I put a computer in some strange things in my life and I think the Altoids tin wins.
While I was cleaning out some random office supplies, I ran into an old tin. Before opening it, I decided to record it like it was an unboxing video. There were a lot of random memories tied to the kit and the main one was why did I ever set this up. I think the answer was to roam around, commute, and randomly have the ability to:
- Eat an orange.
- Clean my ears.
- Help cut something.
- Unscrew something.
It was a random build. From my previous posts, one can see that I like to add scenarios for why. This survival kit had some purpose but seemed like it was a storage tin for small things.
The kit wasn’t too bad…multi-tools, knives, pins, nails, and a light were in there. Again, we have to revisit the purpose. I get a kick out of watching YouTube videos of what people have put into their “mini survival kit”. Mainly because I’m trying to figure out what they are trying to survive from. One person had a list of phone numbers. Ok, in today’s age, the average cell phone has a lot of power but still at what point will you have a need for phone numbers. In fact, what purpose does every item have in the kit?
If I had to rebuild this kit…I would add some tape, dental floss, and maybe some zip ties. I would get rid of the corned beef can too, knife, the Gerber shard, and nails. Again, with purpose…let’s try this scenario: Kit will live in your daypack. Occasionally you run into…ok, forget the scenario. The reality is that out of all the items in there, I have only used the knife and the pin to pop eject a CD from a drive (and now there are no more CD drives).
Today my every day carry consists of:
- Phone
- Knife
- Pin
- USB stick
I think I’ll switch the Altoids tin to carry loose change and will carry the Gerber shard with me for the bottle I need to open once every 6 months.
