Lookin’ for some hot stuff, baby, this evenin’
–Donna Summer, “Hot Stuff”
When I was a kid and went camping, at one point I had this small felt-covered hand warmer that took solid fuel sticks. You’d light one outside of it and get it smoldering, and then place it inside the clamshell and close it, and within a few minutes you had a nice pocket hand warmer. It lasted a long time, got very warm, and the sticks were pretty inexpensive as well (though I never even used a full pack if I recall, I’ve always suffered from the problem of not wanting to use up all of something because then I won’t have any left). The other night I was thinking about hand warmers as we’re getting into the colder seasons soon, and with my joints being the way they are keeping my hands warm can be very important. Opened my old camping gear bag and the old one isn’t there, so I have a feeling either it’s packed in a box never to be found again or it got thrown out because something was wrong with it. But I can get a new Stansport solid fuel hand warmer for only $14. While a lot of people swear by the “hot hands” type of hand warmers that are filled with iron filings and heat by their oxidation, I find they take too long to get warm and often don’t feel like they’re doing a great job, and the ones that run on lighter fluid supposedly run longer but then you have to carry a bottle of lighter fluid with you too, which I don’t want to have to manage. No, I think one (or maybe two since I don’t wear pullover sweatshirts with a large front pocket) of these might go in my cart.