'The Only Thing They're Useful For Is Poking Holes in My Pockets': r/EDC's 34-Comment Keychain Prybar Debate
Every EDC community has a running argument that never quite dies, and on r/EDC one of the longest-running is the keychain pry bar. A member reopened it on September 8 with the bluntest possible framing: what's the point of the keychain prybars? The post drew 34 comments and a spread of answers that ran from sincere endorsement to total dismissal — the full spectrum of how the community feels about a tiny piece of titanium that some people cannot live without and others cannot understand at all.
The skeptic case was stated early and often, and it was funny. The only thing I can see them useful for is poking holes in my pockets, one commenter wrote — the eternal complaint about keychain gear that abrades denim. The response from pry bar owners was equally direct: the point is not leverage, it's access. As one defender put it, a micro bar isn't a lever, it's a wedge and a scraper you're allowed to have on you. That last phrase is the heart of the argument — it goes into a hospital, a school, a customer's living room, anywhere pulling a knife would get you a conversation you do not want. For people who work in those environments, a pry bar is the tool that does 90 percent of what a knife blade should never be used for.
The practical owners brought receipts. A CountyComm Widgy fan reported carrying one on his keys for years and using it all the time — it is the size of a door key and surprisingly useful. Another kept a Nite Ize DoohicKey on the key ring for the smaller pry jobs, so he does not have to hunt down a big screwdriver. Like a lot of EDC stuff, one commenter conceded, it's not something everyone needs regularly — but some of us do, for whatever reason. The most colorful defense framed the bar as a knife-protector: fighting with a bad knife is a bad idea, one wrote — the good knife is for self-defense, the pry bar keeps it ready.
The 34-comment split is a perfect microcosm of EDC philosophy: gear earns its place through your actual life, not through anyone else's. A pry bar is dead weight for someone who opens packages at a desk and pure utility for someone who works in a school or a hospital or a customer's house. The thread's real lesson is that the question is not whether keychain pry bars are useful — it is whether yours will be. If your days involve prying, scraping or places where blades are unwelcome, the Widgy and DoohicKey crowd has your answer; if not, save the pocket space.