Honestly, it’s life changing is a regular series where we talk about the weird and wonderful possessions we can’t imagine life without. Think of it as an ode to the mundane, bizarre and, sometimes, wholly unnecessary products in our lives.
Two years ago, I put a small Swiss Army knife on my keychain and my life has been better ever since. Clipping it on to my keys felt like a cheerful acceptance that my existence had changed (my daughter was about six months old at the time) and I was on my way to going full dadcore.
My knife is not a big stupid one, like the Wenger 16999, which is the size of a human leg and weight of a family car. It’s not an expensive one, and it’s not even an official Victorinox – just a promo item for a film, the logo of which has long eroded. It doesn’t have a bottle opener or tweezers, both of which feel like they’d come in handy occasionally, and about half of its width is taken up by a USB stick I don’t use because (a) nobody needs USB sticks anymore, and (b) I have another larger one on my keychain. Yeah, I know. Leave me alone.
What my knife does have is a biro better suited to DIY tattoos than actually writing anything, and a teeny-weeny light, which is bright enough only to illuminate only itself, drawing attention to the darkness it is powerless to do anything about. However, I use the scissors and the blade more often than I could ever have imagined.
I mean, I’m not bringing trees down or anything, but present me with an annoying, finger-hurting label on a tiny child’s cardigan and I can effortlessly slice through it (the label that is). Show me a pear that is slightly too large for my daughter’s wee mouth, and I’ll Fruit Ninja it to a more edible size. Break the end off a coloured pencil and you know I’m going to leave a big trail of shaved-off shards behind me after sharpening that mofo. Just call me Hansel or Gretel.
And it’s airport-unbotheringly little. There’s a whole community online of EDC (everyday carry) devotees who walk around with enough hardware in their pockets to repair a lorry. While having an ice-pick, siege catapult and full horseshoe kit in your bumbag at any point does probably come in handy, it’s bound to bring stress, scrutiny and body-cavity searches with it. Not so my tiny little blade – big enough to be useful, too small to be scary. You couldn’t mug anyone with it, but you could perform an emergency tracheotomy. Perfecto!
Victorinox has loads of awesome models and sizes available that feature things I’d definitely use. Extremely small rulers! Both slotted and Philips-head screwdrivers! Whatever a “cuticle-pusher” is (I have never met a member of the Swiss Army but I presume their nail game is on point.)
Every time I sharpen a pencil with my little buddy, there’s a small hope in the back of my mind that the blade will snap, requiring me to purchase a new one. I’ll buy online if that happens, but in my head I’ll be visiting a medieval blacksmith like someone out of those video games I don’t have time to play.
And if we ever get to a point where high-tech doors don’t need keys anymore, I’ll still carry my tiny little Swiss Army knife, a multi-function tool on a ring of nothing, ready to de-tag any products, restore worn-down coloured pencils and generally be a sad, magnificent dadcore hero.
Victorinox Swiss Army knives are available from Amazon or the Victorinox website, from £10-225.
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