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Sparkle (1)
One of the things I traditionally do at the start of a new year is clean out the inside of my car. It's just as glamorous as it sounds, particularly because I gave birth to a couple of trash factories a few years back. Sometimes the things I find on this annual excursion are best left undisclosed.
After I take everything out (and vacuum, and bust out the Windex, Armor All, and sometimes even the Febreeze), I have to figure out what gets put back in. In doing so I have to deal with two warring factions in my brain; on the one hand, I actually despise clutter in the car, and like to travel as light as possible. On the other hand, nothing irritates me more than not having something there when I want/need it. Fortunately, the car I currently drive has a trunk approximately the size of Delaware, so generally I can work it out.
So I started thinking about it, and I realized that there are plenty of items I simply won't leave home without, and it goes well beyond the standard "emergency items" we're all cautioned to have on board. I'm not an expert (nor do I play one on television), but the following is my list of 10 things every woman should have in her car:
10) Standard emergency kit items. This includes things like a flashlight, tire gauge, etc. Check out this great little video from Lauren Fix's Howdini on what to have stocked in your kit:
The only change/addition I'd offer is that -- particularly if you have a small car -- it may not be practical to carry actual blankets. Consider picking up a few emergency mylar blankets to keep in your glove box for emergencies, instead. They're cheap and tiny.
Also, even though crank-handle flashlights tend to have a weaker beam than conventional ones, you never find yourself cursing dead batteries. The flashlight I keep in my car is always a wind-up one.
9) Personal paper products. I keep tissues in the car at all times, and I'm always glad I do. Those people you drive past who are not-so-surreptitiously picking away while tooling down the freeway? They forgot their tissues.
If you have the room, throw a roll of paper towels into the trunk, too. You never know. I also like baby wipes as a multi-purpose "clean up everything" option even when you no longer have babies, but I've learned the hard way that here in the South they dry out in hot cars, so I've sort of given up on that one.
There's no delicate way to put this, so I'll just say it: Ladies, if you're still menstruating -- have supplies in your car. I know you keep them in your purse. I also know that sometimes the purse stash runs out and you forget to restock and you're in the car on your way to Somewhere Important Where There Are Only Men and you find yourself thinking of all the things you would cheerfully trade in at that moment for a tampon sans embarrassment. Keep 'em in the glove box.
8) Umbrella. This is another one of those "But I have one in the house/in my purse/at my office" sorts of things where there's always a reason not to bother. Umbrellas are cheap and small, and no matter how many you own, you will one day find yourself in the car in a torrential downpour, with all your other umbrellas MIA.
7) Cell phone charger. I should probably make this one plural; while a cord that fits into your cigarette lighter is a no-brainer, the cost for those portable battery-run chargers and even pocket solar chargers has really come down in recent years. If your cell phone is a lifeline (and really, whose isn't?) making sure you have a way to charge it on the go is just common sense.
6) Reusable shopping bags. At the moment my husband and I have three cars in the driveway, and that's a long and convoluted story I'm not going to share right now, but Way Back When we had one car and one set of reusable grocery bags. The bags lived in the car. Then we got a second car, and the bags lived in the house -- virtually guaranteeing that whenever one of us decided to stop to pick up "just a few things" we didn't have
