I know, odd title. Bear with.
As we trundle toward the launch of [Foxtrot Mike Lima] and while my wonderful editor is working her butt off, I started thinking about ‘pocket litter’.

Pocket litter is exactly what it sounds like. The bits and pieces you carry in your pockets or handbag, those receipts that tell someone you were shopping at The Warehouse at a certain time, for example. Train tickets, bus tickets. In the Wellington region, you’d more often find a Snapper card rather than paper tickets. The card can be read and can confirm the Snapper was on a particular train or bus at a particular time. To confirm it was actually you and not someone else using your Snapper they’d have to get into the surveillance footage.
You might find an ID card, business cards, cash, maybe a passport, a driver’s license …

Let’s just pause on the Driver’s License … if you are driving in NZ you have to have your licence with you. That’s something you expect to find on someone who is driving.

Pocket litter also includes notes, shopping lists, notebooks, pens, absolutely anything you have with you.

I just had a look in my bag … what do I have in there?
A pencil case – full of pens … are they just pens? No, they’re not all just pens. They all write but one is a knife and another is camera and it’s almost impossible to tell from a quick glance.
Another pen is attached to an inside pocket where I can grab it easily – that pen is heavy, it does write beautiful though, it’s a tactical pen.
A wallet – with a bunch of store cards and EFTPOS cards, Snapper card, debit cards, ID, receipts.
A small leather coin purse – it contains flash drives not coins.
Two notebooks. One belongs to the Veronica Tracey Spy/PI series and the other is so I don’t forget things.
Hand sanitiser.
Medication.
Keys.
Lip balm.
Loose pens. (Ordinary pens.)
Tissues.
A folded shopping bag.
And if I’m out – my phone is in my bag.

Pocket litter tells a story. It tells a story about you. It can be manipulated to tell a different story, and it isn’t difficult to do.
Because I’m writing Spy/PI novels at the moment, pocket litter comes into play.
Sometimes it’s the lack of pocket litter that tells the biggest story.
Or finding one odd thing, one thing that shouldn’t be there.
That can spin a whole different story.
For example, Ronnie finds an access card that points a little too conveniently to an organisation. Why would someone have one thing in their pocket? They’re better off having nothing because that’s an instant red-flag for someone like Ronnie.

What does your handbag, wallet, or laptop case or whatever you carry on a regular basis say about you?

🙂