A Small 'Hooligan Tool' That Deserves a Place in Your Daily Carry
It’s one of those flat little pry tools people call a hooligan tool, which sounds bigger than it is. Mine is small enough to disappear until I want it, and just thick enough that I notice it if it ends up in the wrong pocket. For a while I carried it every day without thinking. Then I stopped, also without thinking, which is usually how these things go.
The first time I realized I’d stopped carrying it was at my desk, trying to open one of those stubborn cardboard boxes with the glued seam that laughs at fingernails. I used a key, bent it a little, then went looking for something better and found nothing but a stapler and a plastic ruler. It wasn’t a crisis. It was just that slight friction that makes you pause and wonder why you made something harder than it needed to be.
That’s the category the hooligan tool lives in for me. Not essential. Not even frequent. Just a quiet fix for a handful of annoyances that show up often enough to matter if you pay attention. Lifting a paint lid, popping a battery cover, nudging open a stuck drawer, scraping off a bit of old adhesive without using a fingernail you’d like to keep.
When I do carry it, it usually ends up in the same front pocket as my keys. That’s not ideal. You can feel it sitting there, flat but insistent, shifting the way the keys settle. Sometimes it rides against the edge of the pocket and makes a little outline through the fabric. Not enough to look strange, but enough that I’ll adjust it without thinking when I sit down. Every so often it finds its way into the small pocket above, where it fits better but gets forgotten, like spare change that isn’t quite worth fishing out.
I’ve tried moving it to a bag, which solves the pocket problem and creates a different one. In a bag, it becomes theoretical. I know it’s there, but it’s not part of the small reflexes that make you reach for something without looking. The bag version of it only exists when I remember I have a bag. Most days, that means it might as well not be there.
There’s also a mild social friction to it that I didn’t expect. It looks like it should be used for something more serious than what I actually use it for. If I pull it out at a shared table to open a package, it feels like I’ve introduced an object that needs explaining, even if no one asks. That’s probably on me. I’ve switched back to using keys in those moments more than once, which defeats the whole point.
Still, when it’s not with me, I notice. Not immediately, and not dramatically, but in these small, repetitive ways. A plastic clamshell that doesn’t want to give. A loose staple that catches a sleeve. The cap on a paint pen that’s glued itself shut. None of these are big problems. They’re just the kind that accumulate into a low-grade annoyance you don’t name until something makes it easier.
What I’ve settled into, for now, is a kind of part-time carry. It sits on the edge of my dresser most nights, next to my wallet. Some mornings it goes into my pocket without a decision. Other mornings it stays, and I don’t think about it again until I’m halfway through the day, pushing at something with my thumb and remembering there’s a better way I chose not to bring with me.
It’s not a perfect fit, and I don’t think it needs to be. A lot of the things I carry aren’t there because they’re indispensable. They’re there because, at some point, I got tired of a small annoyance and made a quiet adjustment. The hooligan tool is just one of those adjustments that hasn’t fully decided where it belongs. Some days it earns its spot. Other days it rides along, a little in the way, waiting for a job that might not come.