How to Make Your Own Desk-Drawer Emergency Kit
Essential Items for Every Desk or School Locker
Nov 7, 2008
We’ve all been there. You’re running late and discover to your horror that you left your carefully packed lunch in the fridge. Then, you missed the bus, but caught its tsunami wave of ditch water as it sped past you and soaked you to the gills. You get to work soggy and dirty, forced to make a lunch out of vending machine food.
Having a Plan B for those days you’re not playing your A Game can save you time and money. It’s those who run frantically to the store where the desperate will pay any price for convenience, that make convenience store prices soar.
Buying the stuff you know you will need at least once a year and keeping them in your desk or locker will make it worth it in the long run: Have you seen the price of those “travel size” pain relievers, as opposed to a full bottle? Compare the cost of a box of granola bars you’d buy in the grocery store to the price of a single bar from the corner store, and you know it all adds up.
This Suite 101 Simple Living writer has thought of (almost) every crisis, and compiled a list of Must-Haves for every locker or desk. While the categories are broken down by individual situations, we’d recommend you assemble all the listed gear to make one “I’m ready for anything kit".
The Health Emergency Kit:
- Antacid and/or a stomach remedy of choice
- Headache remedy or pain relief of choice
- Eye drops
- Band-aids and antiseptic ointment
The “I Left my Lunch at Home” Emergency Kit:
- Emergency food stash: Foods that keep well without refrigeration: Granola bars, trail mix, beef jerky, canned tuna, instant soup packets or ramen noodles
- Mug, microwave safe bowl, cutlery
The “Locked-Out-of-the-House” Emergency Kit
- Extra phone card for your cell, or enough change for an emergency call, in case you’re on the road.
- Spare house keys
- Bus tickets or tokens – enough for at least one return trip
Personal Grooming Emergency Kit
- Hairbrush, comb
- Spare pair of socks or pantyhose. Ever get to work soaked to the bone, or find you have a stepladder running along the length of your leg? This is a handy item to have on soggy or cold days.
- Deodorant
- If you’re female: Tampons or pads. If you’re male: Disposable razor and small container of shaving cream.
- Tooth brush, floss and toothpaste. For those times you forgot about the conference meeting with The Boss, and you have spinach in your teeth.
- Spare shirt. For the times your “all dressed pizza” is dressing you.
- Stain remover
- Lint brush
- Sewing kit: Get one from a dollar store before you find yourself shuffling awkwardly into the convenience store while trying cover a popped seam with both hands.
Sure, convenience stores will sell you travel sized sewing kits – for ten times the amount you’d have paid if you got it in a dollar store. If you are averse to buying the plastic container, you can easily make your own:
Make Your Own Travel-Size Sewing Kit:
- Get a small, plastic container with a tightly fitting lid, and add some spools of thread in each of the following basic colours: black, white, beige, red, navy blue, brown.
- Add a needle
- Throw in a couple of plain white shirt buttons and your kit is complete.
The thread doesn’t have to match your clothes exactly; it’s just a temporary patch up job until you can get your seam or hemline fixed.
Non-Vital Items that are Good to Have on Hand
- Safety pins
- Lip balm
- Chocolate
- Hand lotion
There are many reasons for making your own emergency kit. Anticipating a disaster is one thing, but being prepared for it is another. By preparing for the worst, you are not forced to waste money, or worse, wasting your time.
What sits in your desk drawer at work, to help you out when things are rough? Is there anything you would recommend?
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