All Things Considered - Swiss Army Knife

Swiss Army Knife

Possibly my most exciting discovery in the last couple of years has been the photographer's vest that can be had from New York mail order house for mere 59 buck plus postage. It has pockets, pockets, and morepockets, and a kind of mesh top that traps burrs and twigs forever, and little straps which catch in tour bus doors so that it is forever under repair.

In short, the kind of vest that inspires other men in airports to slap you on the back and say, "how's the trout fishing then, eh?" and lurch off to another gate while you exhale your coffee.

I saw it as a solution to my cabin baggage problem, which involves lots of bits of paper with my dyslexic travel manager's instructions on them: receipts for everything; accumulated hotel pens and airlineteaspoons -- I have mild kleptomania -- various address books; diaries; expired passports and keys -- any one of which might fit the back balcony door or the suitcase my daughter took to Pakistan and had tobreak into.

I've got used to the idea of turning around slowly, so I don't knock things off tables. But the last time I had to empty it out aftersetting off all the security alarms at O'Hare, I discovered it was getting like a badly run boy scout's camp.

The Swiss Army knife was obviously over the top. But if you're in Switzerland with a credit card and have a huge choice, you just go for the one with all the bits, don't you? I do use the cute littlescrewdriver quite frequently, to fix the dodgy screw on my spectacles. It's difficult to do it with the magnifying class, so I have to carry a spare pair of spectacles so I can see to fix the dodgy ones, which aremore comfortable than the reliable ones -- if you follow me.

I confess I have never actually used the hook disgorger to disgorge a hook. But it's been handy for stirring coffee since I lost my tuning fork. And I've used most of the other implements, including thesurprisingly good tin opener, and the completely illegible tiny pen.

The toothpick is great for emergency rebooting my Mac. And the file will no longer file anything since I used it once, and it turned out to be pathetic. I did use the knife blades for cutting funny shapedstruts for my guitar during an experimental phase, but they're as feeble as the file really.

I have tried short cuts across deserts, on back roads during heavy cloud cover, and been completely lost. I've seen some of those roads from the air, and I knew for sure that lots of them end up in bigditches. I guessed successfully at an unmarked junction in Arizona, and brought a quite good pocket compass to propitiate the gods.

I got one of those clear plastic magnifiers, essentially with a AAA map book when you need to look for a word that sounds like your dyslexic travel manager's directions -- for when you seek Ted Kit Road (ph) fromNyland, California, down the back of Arcadones (ph) Dunes. But, nothing warned me about the dirt road south of Shiprock.

It started off paved, went to red dirt, then red dirt with rocks, the rocks with a few splashes of red dirt, then absolutely huge boulders and impassable chasms. The map said it went through. Later, someonesaid that American maps are quite often where they wanted to put a road, but ran out of money.

Meantime, I'd nursed a rented Chevy Saloon on tiptoe across boulders into the heart of the mountains, miles from anywhere, to a point where no sane mountain goat would go. It was getting dark, my loss or damagedeal didn't cover collection by helicopter, and I had no way of summoning help.

I'm still not sure how I got back out without ripping the bottom out of the car, but I did, and pulled into a gas station. I asked the woman at the counter about this road. She said "nobody ever goes up there, it doesn't go through." I said I knew that and I'd been up it. Shelooked out the window at my car, looked at me, and it felt like I should be locked up for my own protection.

So I bought the whistle in case it happens again, and I know if I don't keep it my photographer's vest pocket, it will.