I’m not quite ready for a full-blown midlife crisis. But I am ready for a change.
We’ll start small, with the things I carry around each day.
Old Friend. New Guts.
I think it’s a good idea to carry some means of starting a fire.
What if there’s an emergency birthday cake that needs lighting or you suddenly need to celebrate independence with a firework display? Honestly, I can’t think of too many cases where I’d need to light a stick of dynamite, but I’d like to have the option if I need it.
I used to carry my trusty Zippo everywhere. But I quit smoking some years ago, and with the smokes went the lighter. Yes, I could still carry it, but the truth is, if you’re not using it daily and filling it routinely the fuel will have evaporated by the time you need it and it will be useless.
I’ve always liked the Zippo brand. It’s an American icon. Simple. Functional. And I like a brand with a storied past. I hated to see my lighter go. I put Zippo into a box to be discovered by future generations and I resigned myself to carrying a small boring Bic that never saw duty in WWII.
Since, I stopped carrying it, I stopped paying attention to the brand. In that time
Zippo has been making some moves. If you visit their site, you’ll see that they’ve gone big into the outdoors gear and are even marketing hand warmers to pro gamers now. (For better reaction times and dexterity.)
But more importantly,
They are making new inserts for old Zippos.
New butane and electric guts that replace the fuel-based originals. You just slide the old innards out and put the new ones in.
I could finally toss the Bic, dig my Zippo out of the box and still have a reliable butane lighter for when I needed to light an emergency candle should, say, the State of Texas shit the bed when it gets a tad chilly outside.
There are two butane versions—a single torch and a double torch version. I went for the double torch because two is more than one and we all know that more is better than fewer.
I finally get to carry my trusted Zippo again. Kind of.
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