Having A System That Works Against You

I have a system, and if you’ve watched me leave the house, you’ll have seen me implement it: my strange little “tap my pelvis four times” dance is actually a sophisticated check that I’ve got everything I need. Whenever I go out, I like to double-check that I’ve got with me my wallet, keys, mobile phone, and change, and this helps to ensure it. My change goes in my back left pocket, and I know it’s there because of the jangling sound it makes. I’ve left the house before and felt like I must have forgotten something because I only had a single coin, before realising why. In my back right pocket go my keys: the RFID keyfob and large keyring I use gives them a distinctive shape, and tapping them to ensure they’re there seems a little overkill when I should be able to feel that they’re there anyway, but it’s a useful reminder of a habit. My wallet goes in my front left pocket, and my phone goes in my front right, screen facing outwards.

That’s a pretty unusual configuration, I’m aware – many men keep their wallets in their back pockets, keep their phones’ screens facing inwards (to protect them) and so on, but there is a system. I’m right handed, and as a result I find it easiest to rifle through my wallet for notes, cards etc. using my right hand, holding it with my left, so the wallet goes on my left-hand side. It’s also rather big and chunky – I carry a lot of cards and stuff in it – and keeping it in by back pocket would make it difficult to sit down in places where I’d want to keep it in my pocket – like at bus stops, for instance. Having put this first lot of money on the left, I keep my change on the same side. It just feels right: in addition, the weight of my wallet plus change is approximately equal to the weight of my keys plus phone, which makes me feel balanced.

By reaching for my keys with my right, I’m able to use my (obviously more agile) right hand to identify the key I need by touch, usually before I’ve brought the ring round into eyesight, which is a simple efficiency improvement over putting them on the left. I’d honestly prefer it if the RFID sensors in my office building were bum-high, so that I could open doors with my arse and spend even less time fiddling with keys. Perhaps I can persuade the building management that the sensors are too high to be accessible to people in wheelchairs, and get them to lower them. I’m sure that my bottom is at a different height to that of other people, but I don’t care: that can jump or crouch or whatever – I’m the one who came up with the arse-key idea anyway.

As far as protecting the screen of my phone by facing it inwards; my mobile phones get quite a beating at the best of times, and they tend not to last long enough to be at risk of screen breakage. If I had a touch screen device, I might treat it somewhat differently, but this will do for now. It also affords me a couple of benefits: firstly, the lighting up of the screen when the phone rings can be seen through my trousers, which means that even in loud environments, odds are good that somebody will notice that my phone is ringing, and, hopefully, I’ll correctly interpret their pointing at my crotch as meaning that somebody is trying to get in touch with me, and not that – for example – a snake has climbed my leg and is about to bite off my right testicle. Another benefit is that, with a little practice, I’ve learned to be able to press the “reject call” button through a jeans pocket: ignoring people without even looking at the screen.

Perhaps this behaviour seems a little OCD; well, maybe so, and maybe I’ve hammed it up a little bit here anyway, but it works very well for me. Except when it doesn’t.

This morning, I went downstairs and put three of my four items in my pockets. I’d just woken from a dream in which I was left-handed, and as a result, I ended up sleepily putting my things into the pockets on the wrong side (don’t ask how I ended up doing that: instead, ask about the time I dreamt in four-dimensional space – that’s a better story). Realising that I’d not put my phone in my pocket, and wondering where I’d put it, I picked up the landline handset and dialed my number. I heard the phone ring from near the coffee table, so I hung up and started rummaging around there. No sign of it. So I pick up the landline again and dial again: now it sounds like it’s to the right of the coffee table: maybe it’s on the dining table, under some of Claire‘s revision or something? I hang up and look. No sign of it…

Eventually I found it. It was in my pocket. The missing item was not my phone but my wallet, which was still on my desk.

I need a phone that doesn’t feel like a wallet in my pocket.

8 comments

  1. The Pacifist The Pacifist says:

    You think about this sort of thing even more than I do… which is scary.

    My keys are connected to my wallet and always go in my right pocket, and my MP3 player goes in my left pocket. I only ever leave one behind if I carry something else and end up putting it in one of those pockets…

  2. MisterJTA MisterJTA says:

    Heh.

    I keep my trousers configured thusly:

    Left front pocket:
    Swiss Champ, iriver, handkerchief.

    Right front pocket:
    Wallet.

    Right front belt loop:
    Keys

    Right rear pocket:
    Hip flask (sometimes)

    Right hip:
    Mobile in holster thingy.

    And my waistcoat is a veritable utility belt of order, an’ all:
    Top right: small maglite
    Top left: some drugs, some business cards and a USB key.
    Bottom right: Swiss champ.
    Bottom left: A spare ink cartridge, and some stuff for cleaning my glasses.

    And my waistcoat is a veritable utility belt of order, an’ all:
    Top right: small maglite
    Top left: some drugs, some business cards and a USB key.
    Bottom right: Swiss champ.
    Bottom left: A spare ink cartridge, and some stuff for cleaning my glasses.

    This works very well for me, since everything more or less balances out. I’m with you all the way on the sitting down with bulky wallets thing, and, also, I think I’m more likely to notice if I’m being pickpocketed if I feel a sudden nimble hand groping about near my crotch.

    My phones last pretty well, thanks to the holster, but, in the three years since I’ve been doing that with ’em, I’ve got through about six holsters, and I now cope fairly badly without one, because I keep forgetting the phone’s in my pocket (or, indeed, wherever I’ve left the damn thing).

    Keys work really well on a keychain, except, sometimes, if you jump down stairs and land funny, when they swing out and then land me one in the balls, which hurts.

    It all works really well. Only I reckon I’m verging on “thinking about this too much” territory, so I’ll shut up…

  3. Claire Claire says:

    Neither my wallet nor my keys fit in a pocket, and some of my clothes don’t have pockets. Therefore: handbag. I pick it up and shake it when I leave, if it sounds jangly and weighs about right, all is well. This can lead to me forgetting my phone, which is quite light. Also, I still manage to lose my entire handbag regularly. Ho hum.

  4. Binky Binky says:

    “Perhaps this behaviour seems a little OCD”

    Very suspect use of the word Perhaps there.

    Oh, and if you put your wallet in your back pocket (as most men seem to) you deserve to be robbed, for being so dumb. If it’s in your front, there may be a bulge, but you’ll feel it if soemone tries to pickpocket you.

  5. Becky Becky says:

    And yet your to busy to phone your family more than once a month…And thats only to gloat about finishing games before me….when im ILL!!!

  6. JPB JPB says:

    So John has two waistcoasts and perhaps 2 or maybe three Swiss Champs?!

    I also do a ‘three point check’ before leaving the house. It use to be four points when I carried my mini telescope (for reading blackboards and things at school/uni) around with me. But since I no longer use it much it just stays in my bag.

    For me:
    Left front trousers: Wallet
    Right hip belt: phone

    I used to have my keys and little Swiss Army Knife on a belt loop but since I got a bigger knife (Huntsman) and I start putting them in my shoulder bag or coat pocket. Anything else goes in a coat pocket or in my bag.
    As the others have said, a wallet in the back pocket is asking to be stolen.

  7. MisterJTA MisterJTA says:

    JPB, you confuse me. For, a) Who are you talking about when you say “John”? I’m forced to assume it’s me, because I’m the only person who’s mentioned a waistcoat. However, that means b) I only mentioned *a* waistcoat. Whilst I do possess three or four, I don’t see how you can divine that from me saying “my waistcoat.” And c) If you do mean me, why on Earth are you running about calling me John? Nobody else does.

    You do, however, get credit for spotting that I wrote “Swiss champ” when I meant, of course, “Swiss Card;” a Swiss Champ would knacker the lining of almost any non-trouser or -coat garment into which it might find itself inserted. I do still own two of them, as it happens, but I only carry one of ’em about with me.

  8. JPB JPB says:

    a) Yes John (ok Jon) = MisterJTA
    b) Your text about a waistcoast is printed twice (so that means you would have a Swiss Champ in your trousers and one in each of your waistcoats ;-D
    c) I only know you by your full name I’m afraid since I don’t really know you socially and so not any other moniker you may use.

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