It’s the mantra of “the gear investor”:

“Works great for me!”

“Used it for years; never had a problem.”

Or whatever justification that their chosen gear is right, good, and infallible. The defense of the product is even stronger when the gear is demonstrably worse and the ego-investment in it even higher. What’s often implied by these statements is a belief that it hasn’t failed – and it won’t.

Here’s the thing.

All gear will fail. It’s not a question of “if” but “when”.

Gear has parts, and parts wear out and break.

Gear is made by humans, and the fallible creatures we are, we will make mistakes in the manufacture and assembly of that gear.

Of course, good, quality gear strives to be reliable and minimize chances of failure, but it still will happen.

Case in point.

This past weekend I reached into my pants pocket to get my keys. Withdrawing the keys felt different and I quickly learned why. My ASP Street Defender (pepper spray) had become detached from my keys. The tail-cap? It somehow managed to  completely unscrew itself while in my pocket. I have no idea how that happened, but it happened.

My gear failed me.

I’ve carried it every day for over a year. It worked great for me. I’ve never had a problem.

Until I did.

To remedy this, I put a drop of blue Loctite on the cap’s threads, which should minimize the chances of it happening again.

But think about it. Honestly assess how “stuff” has failed you. You may not have thought much about it because the failure came at a “safe” time. Maybe you were on the range just plinking and your gun went “click” instead of “bang”. You probably didn’t think much of it, remedied the situation, and moved on. But that was a failure.

Failure can and will happen, even to that precious piece of gear that hasn’t failed you… yet.

Because of course your gear never has a problem… until it does.