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I tested out the pencil bandolier at the Real Escape Game. You ask: How did it go? I say: That's why we test. Perhaps the bandolier's boldest feature were the colored carpenter pencils. Carpenter pencils are extra-wide in one dimension. Painted different colors, they stood out. Just gorgeous. Well, for some dorkishly nerdy variation on the meaning of "gorgeous".
I'd tested this configuration by sort of gallumphing around my apartment. I was worried that I'd be playing some van game, have to perhaps jog a quarter-mile along a walkway over some swampland to pick up a puzzle... and have pencils falling off the bandolier as they got jerked around. So I gallumphed around the apartment, saw that the pencils stayed attached and figured all was good.
But last night, I tried more common puzzling activity: sitting down and hunching over a puzzle. Then looking up to talk to teammates. Then hunching over to look at the puzzle again. You know, sitting. You'd think that would be much less bouncy than gallumphing. But when I sat, my legs pushed against those carpenter pencils from below—gently pushed them up and off the bandolier. You may recall that I had got some carpenter pencil clips to keep those pencils on the bandolier; those clips probably work pretty well at keeping a pencil in your pocket. But the clips weren't designed with the expectation that something would push the pencils up from below.
So I ended up with a lapful of loose pencils. And this morning, I re-arranged the remaining pencils on the bandolier. The colored carpenter pencils will stay off; I can't figure out a good way to make them stay on that doesn't involve, uhm, more adhesives than I really want to deal with. It's too bad; they were mostly decorative, but wow, really decorative. I'll settle for the understated dignity of regular-width colored pencils instead.
