When I first moved to Portland a friend introduced me to her system of keeping track of all the essential things one needs when walking out the door. I wrote about it in Don't Leave Home Without It. For more than a year this system worked well for me.
However, last December I lost my pod when it fell out of my coat pocket when I was biking up a hill. (Of course, at the time, I had no idea where I'd lost it. One moment I was paying for brunch with a friend and ten blocks later I was locked out of my yurt!)
It was horribly distressing to lose all my essentials in one fail swoop. I had to get a new key from my landlord, cancel my debit card and REI credit card (after I'd finally memorized the numbers!), and replace my brand new business card holder. Fortunately, I was able to put it into perspective when I realized that in more than I year I hadn't lost these things. In the past I would have misplaced these items separately multiple times in the same timeframe!
I thought my beloved pod was gone for good - and I was just about to go through the bother of getting a new driver's license - but exactly two weeks after I lost my pod a local coffee shop called me to say they had it. From the looks of it, it had been run over by a bus, but some kind soul had turned it in. My bus tickets were missing and my chapstick was smashed all over everything, but everything else was still in it. Even the cash! (See photo above.)
I used a different little pouch as a temporary stopgap measure, but I missed having a pretty pod. So today I stopped into an import store with a hunch I'd find what I was looking for. And there it was, my brand new pod. Ta da! Here's to many more months of keeping good track of the essentials.