Maintenance of Everyday Items

One of the con­stants of the uni­verse is Mur­phys Law… if some­thing can go wrong, it will.  And along those lines, if some­thing isn’t main­tained prop­er­ly it will fail at the worst time.  Every­one remem­bers main­te­nance on their cars, on their house, and oth­er big tick­et items….and we all maintain/charge the bat­ter­ies in our phones, flash­lights, etc…or at least we should.  But what about the small­er items that we use every­day that appear to be main­te­nance free?  Most times they aren’t main­te­nance free and require some basic main­te­nance or even replace­ment if they wear out.

Items from my EDC (every­day car­ry) kit that have failed on me are:

My hol­ster. A screw came loose on my belt loop and fell out.  Thank­ful­ly the hol­ster is an inside the waist­band design and it didn’t drop to the ground… but the screw was lost for good and I had to order anoth­er.  I have heard sto­ries of oth­er hol­sters that have failed and allowed the gun to be fired while in the hol­ster… so I guess I got off lucky com­pared to that (but in my opin­ion, those hol­sters should have been replaced long before an inci­dent like that took place).  Check your belt clips, retain­ing screws, leather, etc for loose­ness and signs of wear… and don’t for­get about your mag­a­zine car­ri­er, belt buck­le, etc.

My knife blade.  Any­one who car­ries a knife on a dai­ly basis knows their knives get used a lot…opening pack­ages, cut­ting string, remov­ing cloth­ing tags, slic­ing card­board, etc.  They get dull quick­ly and before you know it, your try­ing to cut a zip tie with a dull knife, using extra force, and run­ning the risk of injury.  A dull knife is way more dan­ger­ous to you than a sharp one.  Its easy to sit down with a wet stone while watch­ing your favorite dra­ma show (like dooms­day prep­pers haha) and spend a few min­utes per week keep­ing your knife sharp.

My gun. Well actu­al­ly not mine thank­ful­ly… but a stu­dent in one of my class­es had his gun seize on him dur­ing a live fire drill.  Lint from his pock­et made it into his mag­a­zine and then into his action.  The nylon in the lint melt­ed and froze the gun with a spent cas­ing in the cham­ber.  Lint/dust and guns don’t mix well so a gun that is car­ried every­day requires more main­te­nance than a gun that sits in a safe… even if they are fired and cleaned with the same reg­u­lar­i­ty.

My sun­glass­es.  One of those pesky screws came out of the frame and ren­dered them use­less.  It was an easy fix with an eye­glass repair kit but I imag­ine it could have been much worse if I require pre­scrip­tion glass­es… or if I was rid­ing a motor­cy­cle and my eye­wear was part of my pro­tec­tive equip­ment.  Reg­u­lar main­te­nance on eye­wear (tight­en­ing screws and clean­ing lens­es) can save you a huge headache.

These are just a few of the things that I have seen fail, Im sure some peo­ple out there have a much longer list.   A lit­tle pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance goes a long way for your EDC kit so don’t over­look it….the end result could range from mild annoy­ance to life threat­en­ing.