A Small Multitool That Deserves a Place in Your Everyday Carry Kit
Walking out to the car, I had that light, hollow swing in my pocket, like something wasn’t dampening the movement. It took a second to place it. The small metal weight that usually sat against the keys wasn’t there. I stood there longer than I needed to, hand in pocket, counting by feel instead of looking. Phone, wallet, keys. That was it.
The multi tool was still on the dresser where I’d set it down the night before.
I left it.
The thing about carrying one isn’t that you’re always using it. Most days you’re not. It just sits there, folded up, doing nothing except adding a little weight and a certain stiffness to the pocket it lives in. You notice it when you sit in a low chair or when you shift in the car seat. You notice it when you switch to lighter shorts and suddenly it feels like too much.
But you also notice when it’s gone, even if you can’t immediately say why.
For me it started pretty casually. Not some decision to be prepared, just a run of small annoyances. A loose screw on a cabinet hinge that I kept ignoring. Packages that needed opening when I didn’t have anything sharp nearby. A battery compartment that required a tiny driver I didn’t feel like going to the garage for. None of it urgent. Just enough friction to be mildly irritating.
So I started dropping a small multi tool into my pocket in the morning. No ceremony. It sat next to my keys for a while, then moved to the other side because the clinking got on my nerves. Eventually it found a more permanent spot, tucked into that corner of the pocket where it didn’t shift much.
At first I used it more than I expected, probably because I was aware of it. That phase doesn’t last. After a couple weeks it becomes background. You stop reaching for it just to justify carrying it. You forget it’s there until something comes up.
And when something does come up, it’s rarely dramatic. It’s tightening a wobbly chair at the office while you’re on a call. Snipping a stray thread off your sleeve because it’s catching on everything. Opening a stubborn plastic package in the car because you don’t want to wait until you get home. Small, quiet fixes that don’t feel like events.
Then there’s the other side of it. The days where it just feels like extra.
Hot weather makes you more aware of everything in your pockets. Fabric gets thinner, pockets sag differently, and that little block of metal starts to feel like a decision instead of a habit. Some mornings I pick it up, turn it over once in my hand, and set it back down. I tell myself I probably won’t need it.
Those are the days when I’ll reach for it out of habit anyway. My hand goes to the pocket where it should be, and there’s that slight pause when it isn’t there. Not panic, just a small interruption. Like missing a step on stairs you’ve walked a hundred times.
Most of the time, nothing happens. The day goes on exactly the same. I don’t need it. I don’t miss it in any practical way. But once in a while there’s a moment where I do something a little less efficiently because I left it behind. I use my keys to pry something open and wish I hadn’t. I go looking for a screwdriver and get distracted halfway there. It’s never a big deal, just a small accumulation of inconvenience.
What’s funny is how it moves in and out of the rotation without much thought. Sometimes it migrates to a bag and lives there for weeks. Sometimes it sits on a desk next to a pile of things that don’t quite have a home. Then one morning it finds its way back into a pocket like it was always supposed to be there.
There isn’t really a “best” one in the way people sometimes talk about it. The one that stays with you is the one that fits into your day without asking much. Not too heavy, not too bulky, not so specialized that you feel like you’re carrying around a solution looking for a problem. Just something that handles the small, common annoyances that come up often enough to matter.
If it’s too much, you’ll leave it. If it’s just right, you’ll forget about it, which is kind of the point.
I went back inside later that morning and picked it up off the dresser. Slipped it into my pocket without really thinking about it. The keys settled down again, quieter this time. It didn’t feel like adding something. It felt like putting something back where it had been missing.