The Carabinger Trend

What's with these carabinger things popping up everywhere? They started off with climbers, and now they're all over the place. I can walk around campus and practically every other person has a Nalgene bottle attached to their backpack or yuppie bag with one of these.

I got my first carabinger, seen here, at a conference. I'm a sucker for free stuff, so I grabbed one. Looks like a cool (questionable) keychain, right? Well I immediately tried out the compass - worthless. It doesn't work at all. North shows one way, then shake it around, and it will point in another direction.

It gets worse. Etched into the metal is this, "NOT FOR CLIMBING - CHINA." So I can't even climb with it? What if I was lost in the wilderness? After hours of wondering in circles due to the faulty compass, I finally find a cliff that I can rappel down to safety. I find a rope lying there, and I always have my trusty carabinger keychain for situations like this, but no, not for climbing. The cheap thing snaps and I fall to my death.

The one part that actually does what it's supposed to is the little keyring on the end of it. So at least if I fell 80 feet, the keys would probably all stay on the ring. I guess that would be convienent for the people that had to pick up my pieces.

Is this a Communist China plot to kill dumb Americans? Oddly enough, I'd say capitalism is to blame.

Do yourself a favor and invest in quality items, especially tools. This carabinger / compass keychain is cool in theory, but in reality, it's really only good for a keychain.