So much of EDC seems to be centered around either surviving alone in the woods for days or alternatively using your tactical pen to stab a terrorist to death and John McClane the building. I’m John Suburban and my EDC includes a gun, a ferrorod and a tacpen with built in seatbelt slicer and window breaker (none of which I ever trained to use, but am assured will use competently after a flip over car crash into a body of water).
Which is a shame, because I think EDC stuff is cool. Little nifty tools! What do the denizens of this here website chapo.chat like for non chud EDC applications?
I’ll start off with some favourites,
- a small AA-powered flashlight by EOLite (self-explanatory I think)
- a Gerber Dime (basically one of those small swiss army knives but the pliers are a nice touch for a lot of things, like not touching the garbage juice)
- a keychain presta-to-schrader adapter to reinflate my bicycle tyres at any given gas station, should the need arise
Currently also building a bicycle EDC-Pouch where space isn’t limited to pocket size, would love to hear what other people use.
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phone keys wallet. why would i need anything else
Death to America
I gotta finagle shit in my daily life man
What does EDC stand for?
Every day carry
Engineering dookies celestially.
Technical name for shitting through a sunroof. (I’m joking)
Uhh you know just 7 guns with different calibers, a hunting rifle. 300 yards of string, another gun, gasoline, several knives, a firemans axe (for emergencies), and my wallet. Sometimes my passport.
Mostly normal stuff (phone, wallet, keys, water bottle) but also pepper spray and narcan. My work is pretty cool about giving me free narcan in case we come across someone ODing, and I have ended up using it a few times. I also got this neat little flashlight with a really wide LED that a robot supply store sent me as a bonus thingy.
My “EDC” is a pocket knife, a sharpy, a lighter, and my gigantic key chain that has, among other things, a tiny spork, a tape measure, a tiny prybar, a tick removal tool, a ton of keys whose purpose I’m unsure of, my library car, a neat doohickey for holding a screwdriver bit, and an extra carabeener attached to the main carbiner.
SOG PowerLitre
Oh yeah and masks. Oh and phone. f
In my current living setup I don’t need to carry keys most of the time, but I always used my keys to open boxes in the past. So I picked up a clever little AliExpress “titanium” “8 in 1 crowbar” that has a wide, flat, unsharpened edge (so hopefully no airport problems), integrated bottle opener, one corner shaped like a phillips screwdriver, etc. Everything I would want most of the time from a folding multitool in the space of a key.
Also a tiny pair of tweezers and a decidedly untactical little pen. I’m auditioning USB-rechargeable keyring flashlights.
During the 11/11 sale I picked up a SOG PowerLitre folding tool to keep in my backpack. It looks chuddy as fuck with its skull-in-a-beret logo but I bought it based 100% on the corkscrew implementation. It’s the only multitool corkscrew I’ve seen with a bottle-lip knee on the opposite side for compound leverage like a waiter’s corkscrew (that is to say, it’s the only multitool corkscrew I’ve seen that is worth a damn). Gotta be able to get my wine on at a moment’s notice
Gotta be able to get my wine on at a moment’s notice
genuinely this catches the spirit of why I asked
Probably the thing that I find gets the most use is an A5 art pad with a mechanical pencil in the binder rings. Bonkers useful and you can spill drinks on it.
A small bottle of isopropyl alcohol.
Microfibre cloth.
Those little fast food hand wipes.
Meds
Phone charger
Other things people have mentioned.
Microfibre cloth.
What’s the use case here?
Idk, I left it in my bag and now it lives there. I guess sometimes things need cleaning or gingerly holding and you want more fabric mass than a handkerchief. It’s come up at pubs and the machine shop (I do wash the cloth)
microfiber cloth + alcohol makes me think glasses
I generally have
- pocket knife(I have like 3) or a Leatherman Skeletool if I feel like it might come in handy.
- a small flashlight(I have 2 different rechargables and a backup AA battery Coast brand one)
- 2 or 3 small fidget things(slider, worry stone, etc)
- Loop ear plugs or bluetooth ear buds
- phone
- wallet w/ tiny pen
- car key if I’m driving
- Kindle e-reader
I also have a “micro” EDC kit made out of a Gerber Dime, a button flashlight, and a prybar if I’m going like super light. I’d like to replace the button light with a rechargeable keychain light. But honestly, the Dime is mostly only useful for opening packages.
I started my new job and we aren’t allowed to have a knife because it’s considered a weapon so I’m thinking about getting a decreet “knot puller” that looks like a sharpie for self defence if I need it since I’m delivering Amazon packages to shitty neighborhoods.
One essential item I can’t be without that I rarely see other people carry- a nail clipper. I have constant hangnails and it can ruin my day if I need them trimmed but lack a clipper. And biting them off only makes it worse.
I usually just use the small scissors on whatever multitool I’m carrying and that seems to work for me. I think Victorinox even advertises theirs as nail scissors
phone, keys, wallet, pocketknife, multitool, lighter, couple of usb sticks, one with files, one with a linux installer, tiny usb a-microb cable, usb microb-c adapter, fistful of allen wrenches with which I can fix my electric unicycle.
i have this compact keychain bottle opener that has a swappable phillips and flathead driver on it. and the littlest gerber baby pocket knife.
I’ve got a butterfly knife bottle opener that I carry around. Flipping it is fun and hey if I get a Mexican Coke I can open it.
Lotion, deodorant, hand sanitizer, umbrella (most days), water bottle, battery pack for phone, headphones, bike lights, Kindle, phone, keys, wallet, clif or lara bars, n95 equivalent masks, shopping bag for groceries, hair tie, fidget toys. I carry a backpack for all this stuff
I should get the presta to Schrader adapter
Real answer is that I’ve got a really cool keychain that I can spin around my finger for fidgeting. I’ve got a sort of multi-tool metal thing that fits in my wallet, which isn’t good for anything, but it’s fine enough for most things. A bottleopener in my keychain (for beers). A diary, a calender (I forget to use the phone one) whatever book I’m not reading at the moment, but feel like I should be. Water in a big bottle, but I just lost my big water bottle, so now I’m drinking out of random regular bottles like a peasant. Sometimes a camera if I’m feeling frisky.
It’s getting to the point where you can’t trust the weather, so I’ll put a rain parka in my backpack and then forget I have it when it’s raining.My work is very mobile so I have a lot of stuff with me, but the essentials are: Backback with laptop, water bottle, pen, post-its, paper, snacks like nuts/trailmix, masks, disposable gloves, hair brush, chargers and their wires, a nose insert thingy that masks smells.
Pockets have: Keys and id card in my neurodiversity lanyard, phone, home keys
Lib balm
Pastilles (xylitol)
Nasal spray
A CPR mouth cover in my keychain
Pack of handkerchiefs
Bluetooth ear buds
A reflector or many in my clothes in the dark months
A reflector or many in my clothes in the dark months
Huh, never thought of it but I could just chuck a bicycle cat eye reflector in there for spare if one gets broken or for use as a personal reflector or if you wanna mark something where it’s dark so you can find it with your flashlight. nifty idea you got there, don’t think I’ve ever seen that
Thanks, this is very common here. You can get all sorts of different shapes and styles and most commonly they are hung from pockets on each side. Also lots of wearable reflectors like arm bands, small vest type things.
From Natopedia: “In the late 1950s, Mr. Arvi Lehti a farmer and plastic manufacturer from Pertteli, Finland came up with the idea of a reflector suitable for pedestrian use. His initial idea was to join a pair of automotive reflectors together and attach them to clothing. This early concept was developed further by Arvi’s company Talousmuovi into a small, light-weight reflector fit for commercial sale. In the 1960s The Finnish police and transport authority wanted a reflector to improve pedestrian safety, they asked Talousmuovi to design one. The reflectors they created were eventually made for sale to Finns and later the world.”
