Admittedly, the Mystery Box is a gamble. Some items are cool or useful, some, not so much. Usually the disappointing stuff is fodder for garage sale, Goodwill or a junk drawer, right? Here's a case of me turning something meh into something handy.
It starts with a PDA case I got in my second MB. I don't have a PDA, no one I know uses a PDA. Not so great, huh? My wife tried to use it to store her mp3 player and thumb drive, but that didn't work too well. It was too roomy and there was an opening in the corner for a stylus.
Still, it's not a bad case. It has pockets on the flap for credit/business cards and another pocket under that.
Lately, three things happened to give me the idea for using this case. One, my son is getting older, almost two and a half years old. Subsequently, his playing is becoming more active and rambunctious. Two, I see commercials for Neo-to-Go, a pocket sized sprayer of Neosporin antiseptic. "Yeah", I think to myself, "that would come in handy the way my son is playing now. Just a matter of time to treat scratches and scrapes". Three, my wife scored a few freebies at a local event: among them some packets of sunscreen and a small spray bottle of hand sanitizer. And it adds up into my mind: I'll turn it into a minor first aid kit!
I would need to close off the large open area of the PDA storage area and compartmentalize it. So, I use this:
No, not the light. The packaging. So much stuff I get from TF is in blister packs: durable plastic sheets. (Some might make a joke that the packaging is more useful than the light.) The back of the cell phone light packaging is flat and with a few pieces, some trimming, some folding and a few smears of superglue, I have this:
Not too pretty, but fortunately, the case hides a host of flaws.
Now, to gather my supplies. The aforementioned hand sanitizer and sunscreen, band-aids, of course, (with antibiotic already in the pad), some benzocaine packets for treating itches or minor burns and antiseptic wipes. Found a box of 100 antiseptic wipes on eBay for $5, since I figure I would go through those rapidly. And some tweezers from the $1 store (had to treat a splinter already).
Hmmm. Maybe I should have some little light if I need to examine an injury. Where, oh where am I going to get a light small enough to fit in this case?
And here it is all together:
The hand sanitizer spray bottle is small and narrow enough to fit through the opening in the case for the stylus, which I thought worked out rather serendipitously.
Sure, I could pick up an already packaged first aid kit for a few bucks, but this way, I utilize something I had. Plus, it's easier to organize and restock when I need.
So, anyone else have any adaptions or modifications they want to share?
"A boat's a boat, but the mystery box could be anything. It could even be a boat! You know how much we wanted one of those!" -Peter Griffin