Being small, smooth, and cylindrical, it's the perfect thing to lose all the time. But I always find myself needing it most when I don't have it- probably because I've gotten so used to using it on the daily that being without it feels so uncomfortable. So, chapstick has been in my EDC (every day carry) for the past ~1.5 years. Despite, I've only ever finished one tube. The damn things keep disappearing from my pockets, into the abyss that is the top of my dresser.
I guess I could clean my room, or make a dedicated chapstick box to put them all in. But that's less fun than, say, having it on one of those retractable keychain holders. So, I put it on a retractable ketchain holder. At this point, I'd like to recognize that it may seem that I've gotten to the point of the reading and there's nothing exciting beyond these 2 paragraphs. Hopefully you will look a little below and find that you are wrong. I'd also like to point out that one of my friends suggested putting the chapstick on a necklace, so that it's closer to where it needs to be. I think it's a fantastic idea and perhaps the next iteration of NLCT (never-lose chapstick technology).
Iteration 1 was with the chapstick almighty, Aquaphor. The tube is a little bigger than the standard, and the lid is long and goes all the way down to the twisty part. It's also susceptible to sliding off the tube if it doesn't reach the bottom holder bumps. I was attaching the retractable holder to the chapstick by super gluing its keyring holder down and then putting some fabric tape over that. It held reasonably, and I was able to have it there for a few days after that.
However, one sunny afternoon I was biking home and realized the lid of my aquaphor container was gone (this is where you may do a dramatic gasp). Figuring it was too far gone to go back track everywhere I went that day, I accepted it as a loss. I didn't want to carry around a lidless chapstick container, so for the next week or so, it lived on the top of my dresser. The container remained superglued to the retractable keyring. It felt like fate, this loss, because the next iteration was going to be attaching small brackets to the side of the lid and using a thin cord stringing through to keep the lid connected.
This past Monday, my friends and I did a taco crawl in the Mission. On our way to the Mission, my buddy and I stopped at a corner store on Page street. The pain was too demanding. I needed chapstick. He needed Gatorade, the dehydrated fucker works at a LARP camp. I purchased a three-pack of the brandname Chapstick (medicade versiont too.. whatever that means) and we were on our way.
Several days later, I needed to attach my chapstick to its keyring. The metal loop was previously covered in superglue so that wasn't going to work anymore. I pondered what else I could do as I rode my bike to work. At my workplace, we've got all sorts of craft materials. During a clear moment of not having to help any kids rewire a small robot, I broke and pried off the super-glue covered metal loop. That left one more, a triangular one. Someone had brought a drill into the space we were using that day, and it had a very small drillbit on it. I drilled two small-but-sketchy holes in the bottom, twisty part of the chapstick tube. Then I used some wire to string it through the triangle loop. No superglue involved!
Moral of the story? I guess don't lose you aquaphor container's lid. Or maybe just don't attach the aquaphor to anything. However, my aquaphor loss resulted in a Chapstick win. Maybe the real moral is the brand loyalty we developed along the way. Thanks for reading!