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Pocketses, Pocketses

I’m running out of pockets. How can this be? How many pockets does a guy really need to carry his essential stuff—which is to say, how much stuff really is essential?

Front left pocket: key ring, car key (which must be kept on a separate key ring, since we share the car), spare change. When I’ve got a lot of change and I’m driving, the pocket becomes uncomfortably full, but I can’t move them to the front right pocket, because that contains…

Front right pocket: pocket knife. I’d prefer not to scratch it, but more significantly, the frame cracks off with too much impact…like whacking into quarters and keys.

Right rear pocket: wallet. I’d prefer to live without a lump under my butt, but where else is it going to go?

Left rear pocket: cell phone, a new arrival that definitely can’t go with the keys or knife without getting scratched all to hell. For a while I was able to keep it in a shirt pocket, but summer is approaching, and golf shirts don’t always have them. Now I’ve got a lump under each butt cheek when I sit.

Add a pen which also used to sit in a shirt pocket but now gets clipped to my collar. (Any pen won’t do; at my collar, a pen needs to have a cap that won’t poke into my throat.)

I use all of this stuff, if not daily then at least frequently and regularly. Money, keys, knife, pen, phone… all things that you might have use for at any time. Papers, laptop, mini-umbrella, scratch paper go in my satchel, but only because they don’t fit in a pocket. I’ve wanted all of these and gone without when not carrying my satchel. My lifestyle is not a complex one. And yet one more pocket item will be one too many. How did I reach the point where I’m taking inventory twice a day?

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