Creature of Habit

I keep a can of Sabre Red hanging on a hook in the kitchen next to the hook that holds my keyring. In this way I am prompted to grab the can of OC and stuff it in my pocket whenever I leave the house, even if it's just to fetch soda from the garage or take the trash cans to the curb. (There's a separate, slightly larger, one by the front door, in case I leave that way.)

For pocket carry, you want the flip caps. The kind with the little twist tab will go off in your trousers and bathe your naughty bits in burning fire.

Having a level of force available "between a kind word and a gun", and yet which can still operate at standoff distances, is something I don't want to be without. Yeah, yeah, I used to be one of those "I'm not a pepper spray kind of girl. I have a Glock! Tee hee!"* types, too, but then I got edjumacated and realized how dumb I'd been.

So, anyway, when I went to New Hampshire earlier this year, Marko provided a loaner OC dispenser that I kept next to the car keys and consequently carried pretty religiously when I left the house.

You can carry OC in your checked bags, but you want to double ziploc that stuff just in case it leaks at FL350. You don't want to get to your destination only to discover you've contaminated all your clothing and the inside of your suitcase with ouchie-burnie stuff. This is why considerate friends have spares for loaners.

During my New Mexico trip last month to visit Lab Rat and Stingray, they thoughtfully provided an OC canister identical to the Sabre Red Mk.6 I usually carry, the one on the right in the above photo. However I frequently found myself out and about without it in my pocket, because I didn't need my keys while I was there. (Nerd ranch has high-speed keyless deadbolts, and I wasn't driving.)

This must be why pilots have preflight checklists.

*Ironically, looking at that two-decade-old photograph of Oleg's with the experience I've had since then? These days it'd be fifty-fifty that I'd take a good can of spray over that craptastic AMT DAO dumpster fire. It's more useful in a wider variety of situations and less likely to shit the bed when I need it most.