Be prepared, that's the Boy Scouts marching song, Be Prepared.

[venta]

I have just finished attending to some items of correspondence. (Doesn't that have a lovely, respectable, Victorian ring to it ? Actually, I was parcelling up a birthday present for my godmother and writing a get-well card to the uncle who accidentally threw himself severely downstairs earlier in the week. But not to worry.)

Being a post-y sort of person, I have spare blank cards, and wrapping paper, and parcel tape and things like that on hand for these moments. What I currently seem to lack is scissors, which is weird because I know I own at least three pairs. And you should always know where your scissors are.

Having parcelled my parcel, I addressed it with a marker pen. A permanent marker, which meant I could write across the tape without worrying about the ink smudging off. And I paused to think: aren't marker pens great ? Everyone should have one, just in case they want to write on things with shiny surfaces. You perhaps don't need them often, but when you do they're incredibly handy.

So, this post is dedicated to the small things which aren't in everyday use, but which every household should have, tucked away in a drawer in case of need. At my parents' house there is a drawer known as The Everything Drawer, which is full of many such items. Unconsciously, I seem to have nominated one of my desk drawers here to be The Everything Drawer.

A marker pen. A ball of string. A pair of long-nosed pliers. Some blu-tac. A spare battery for that Thingy which takes an odd-sized battery. Elastic bands and saftey pins and paperclips. A box of matches. A silver-cleaning cloth.

Incidentally, I don't have pens on that list. That's because I assume a house has pens like I assume it will have windows. Yet a few times in recent years I've been in someone else's house and it's been a real scramble to find anything to write with. Who are these freaky people who don't regard pens and paper as household necessities ?

Let's hear it for useful everyday objects.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Now it's just a question of hunting through all the pens, and finding one that actually works.

Recently I developed an ingenious solution to this problem: next time you pull out a pen and it doesn't work throw it out instead of putting it back in the basket. Your basket of pens will slowly evolve into a leaner, meaner, more efficient basket of pens.