Empty your pockets!

My wife has a purse. In it, she gets to carry about anything. This isn't news to most of you; I've seen other blog posts where women empty their purses on the table and list everything they find in it. So I know that a lot of women carry a lot of junk in their purses.

I thought that being a man, I was somehow above this encluttering practice. See, I don't carry a purse (big surprise here, I know). So I must be exempt from whatever law it is that turns purses into portable junk drawers, right?

Nope.

Turns out, I have a suit. My suit is my purse, after a manner of speaking. Well, we can call it my portable junk drawer. I think I prefer that term. My wife and I teach a local institute class, so I end up wearing my suit at least twice a week, and I've gathered a lot of stuff in my suit coat.

I've been thinking about this for a while now. My suit has a total of 9 pockets. My brother and I attended Priesthood Meeting at the Conference Center on Saturday evening. After we got home, I decided to catalogue everything in my portable junk drawer (I mean suit) pockets.

Here is the list.

• Watch
• Subway flier with three coupons, one used
• 3 Kleenex (1 used, two new)
• six pens
• funeral mints (Altoids)
• balloon
• cell phone
• wallet (we won't even go into the stuff that is in this mini-portable-junk-drawer)
• church keys (external, chapel, organ) on carabiner key chain
• USB thumb drive
• chap stick: (lip moisturizer variety, classic flavor)
• chap stick: (lip moisturizer variety, vanilla mint flavor)
• yellow tithing donation slip receipt
• Costa Vida magnet (from the Gateway Costa Vida restaurant)
• Post-it note with e-mail address of institute secretary
• Lanyard with attached institute parking card
• car keys

I think the strangest thing in my pockets is probably the balloon. It is in my pocket because we used it as part of an institute object lesson. The most sentimental thing in my pocket is the Altoids tin of funeral mints. These were the mints my sister's roommate gave us at my father's funeral. She thought we might appreciate having them while we were in line at the viewing, and then at the graveside. Somehow I haven't been able to take them out of my pocket yet.

So, what's in your portable junk drawer? Empty your pockets and purses. I want to know what you are toting around with you.