Just the Important Stuff

As I was driving down the road yesterday, I reached for my lip balm in the center console. I knew exactly where it was so I didn’t take my eyes off the road (you hear me, kids?) but I got to thinking about the essentials I keep in the traveling suitcase called my car.
Here’s the current list in the console, in case you’re interested:
Yes- the lip balm/ lip gloss. If I put it on when I do the rest of my extensive, complicated & costly morning ritual of face prep. for the day, it all comes off when I take the requisite vitamins & gallon of water that follows. So, logically I have to keep this in my car! Duh!

Tweezers. Women- you know what this is about! That wire growing out of your face was not there when you got up, but grew in the 20 or so minutes between home & first red light where you looked in the mirror to check said lip gloss and saw that offending beacon of menopause.

Microfiber lens cleaner thingy.
That little square of fabric with no actual name but completely necessary if you’re going to see beyond the cosmically smeared lenses that keep you from hitting the lady on the three-wheeled bicycle decorated with plastic flowers as you drive at a hell-bent pace down the street ’cause you’re late again. Tried to buy one of those “thingys” in the store recently and the Target clerk looked at me like I was from planet Alderaan or something!
Pen and Pencil.
Like I write anything with these archaic tools anymore. The pen does have a stylus on the other end, so that seems useful. Oh, and for signing that permission slip that should have been turned in a week ago but was forgotten in the bottom of the backpack and must be signed RIGHT NOW in front of the high school while some nine-year- old who just got her license yesterday lays on her horn ’cause I have the nerve to stop my car in the parking lot and she’s late for school (my fault).
Gift cards, punch cards, and the like.
I once kept these in my wallet but couldn’t close it anymore. I can forget them just as easily in the car as in my wallet.
Pepper spray.
Honestly, I’m not sure this little canister even works any more and by the time I got it out of the center console to spray at someone we’d be halfway to Bakersfield.
Mints.
Every time I have lunch with this one friend he gives me his mint (He has the best teeth). He purposefully doesn’t eat them to, as he says, “keep people away.”
Kazoo.
Perhaps the most essential of all car tools. We’re not talking about the plastic nickel prize Cracker Jack one either. This is the “professional” metal (kinda) deluxe instrument. Got road rage? Kazoo solution. Got a bad day? Kazoo solution. Want to annoy your children? Kazoo solution. ‘Cause you never know when you might be inspired to toot the entire Stephen Foster songbook!