Carry Scenario: Kid’s Birthday
For an introduction to the Carry Scenarios series, look here.
You know two things that are really incompatible? Espada XLs and kid’s birthdays. Please don’t decide to show your allegiance to the Second Amendment cause by cutting food that comes in sheet form (sheet cake, sheet pizza, sheet of brownies) with a CKRT XOC. The weird thing is, despite the sensitive to scary knives, I have never been to a Kid’s Birthday that didn’t have a moment where someone asked either: does anyone have a knife? Or can you open this? That’s when everyone turns to us Gear Geeks with expectant looks. So what should you bust out? This is a very tough one.
Fear Factor: Peak
So, a 17 year old’s birthday is one thing, but most people stop kids birthday before then. Supposing this is a class birthday for seven year olds, unless you are deep in the heart of Texas, most people are going to look at you when you bust out a knife in the same way they leer are registered sex offenders. Most parents will think: “How can you bring that implement of death to this festival of young life?” Then, when person of honor opens a Nerf blaster that needs to be cut out of a clam shell with the same level of security as fund transfers between branches of the Federal Reserve they will all look to you expectantly. You dutifully liberate the new sidearm and blend back into the crowd all the while Brenda, the soccer mom, leers at you like you are member of the Mujahideen carrying an AK-47. Precisely 5 minutes in 20 seconds later the birthday person realizes that the new addition to their foam arsenal takes batteries and again you are pressed into service by parents that are marking you as the number one suspect for a school shooting in their mental checklist. As you can see, this is perhaps the very worst environment to bust out a blade, short of some place where it is illegal. Ain’t no one liking you here.
Chaos Level: Peak
Lots of kids, lots of parents, lots of presents, lots of food in sheet form full of sugar—this is not the place to set down your gear and walk away, even for a second. Between being a whirlwind of activity and the curious nature of children who are no where near as judgey as their parents, if you set down something interesting looking it will DEFINITELY walk away.
Clothing Impact: None
Most of the parties I have been to are pretty informal affairs, so jeans and coin pockets are super useful. This is the one aspect of kid’s parties that is not an absolute nightmare for EDC folks.
External Restrictions: Variable
Other than new knife laws that you incur when traveling to a different state, there is not much here.
Recommendations
If you want to carry a knife you can, but with the chance that you, as the default handy person in you friend group, will be pressed into service assembling something, I really think the knife is a bad choice here. At a minimum you want a blade and a driver and while Leatherman makes knives that do those two things, they tend to be something I am not thrilled to carry as they bulky and not particularly good at the driver function, especially compared to what Victorinox offers. I am also acutely aware of size in this scenario. Even if you did carry one of the Leatherman knives with a driver, it might be too off putting to carry without getting strafed with dirty looks. That means I want something smaller (truth be told—most EDC gear should be on the smaller side). Finally, there is the form factor. The knife form factor here just doesn’t work as well. The less knife-y the thing looks the better it be for you to carry at the party. This narrows down the list of recommendations quite a bit.
Lights are probably not as critical, but I would recommend a small torch like a 47s Mini or Mini Turbo or the Reylight Mini Pineapple v3. But since no one gets offended by a flashlight, bring a 4D Mag if you want. The knife or tool is going to be the real limiting factor here.
Gerber is not often on a list of recommendations on this because of some serious QC issues in the past, but my luck with Gerber Dime has been pretty good. The combination of a clam shell cutter, driver, and pliers makes this the practically perfect Kid’s Party EDC. You won’t get any “wow that’s cool” looks from Dad’s that are EDCurious but it will definitely get the job done on for pretty much every task you will face—opening packages, screwing stuff open or closed, and light assembly work. Plus the very tool-like form factor of plier-based multitools will make the Dime very socially acceptable. It’s a pair of adorably small needle nose pliers. Plus the pliers are spring loaded.
Victorinox Mini Champ
And while we are on the top of adorable tools, nothing is quite a socially acceptable as a 58MM SAK. The weird hook tool is basically a clam shell cutter and the driver is better than the driver on the Dime. It lacks the pliers, obviously, but that is probably a tradeoff worth making because of the superiority of Victorinox implement designs. Plus if you get the alox version you might get some knowing nods from other tool users that are jealously guarding their secret identity at a party full of judgey people whose hobbies include looking down on others with scorn-filled glances.
This is a huge step up in size but it also gives you a real knife blade. It is a little HG Giger looking so that might put off a few people, but again, the tool-like appearance will be a plus. The driver isn’t as good as the Victorinox and the pliers are bit stumpy and are not springloaded, but this is a real tool that can do real work. If you are forced into flat-pack hell assembling some giant contraption for a kid, you will appreciate stepping up to something full size.
Also a full sized tool and with better pliers, the Flash MT is not as well made or visually interesting as the Skeletool, but the assisted blade will definitely attract unwanted attention. Put simply, Brenda is going to fucking hate you for this. I like the driver better than the Skeletool too, but it is not as good as the Vic stuff.
If you aren’t forced into service into flat pack hell, this is a good full sized choice. The combo tool’s driver is really great for both phillips and flathead. Plus, in the Alox version, this thing is basically a feather in your pocket. I also think that outside the niche of SAK proponents, the standard Vic blade is really underrated—they are and always were slicing champs.
Victorinox Compact
Basically the Bantam with scissors and a corkscrew. The scissors allow you to avoid Brenda’s gaze (in the Foucault sense of the word) and not present a knife blade, plus, if it is a party with some catering to adults, you can pop open that vino for everyone.
So if you want to offend no one but still be open a brew, you can bring just the Everrachet. It is pretty tough but not impossible to open a clam shell, but the drive actually works pretty well. I am not sure how the pry tool will help, but you never know.
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