Power banks
Tuesday night into Wednesday morning was a long 12+ hours. My wife had to check in to emergency1. Being that this was after 10pm, and we were originally going to be at home in bed, our phones were not well-charged. I can't remember what mine was at but I'm sure it was below 40%. I think my wife was in a similar boat, but probably worse, given that I suggested she plug her phone in while we drove to our game. We had to go back home to retrieve her health card before we could go to the emergency room, so were in a bit of a rush. We didn't bring any charging bricks with us. We knew it would be a long wait, but we didn't really know how long.
So eventually we were running precariously low on power. We didn't truly need our phones at the early stages of our wait, they were a tool to stave off boredom for the time being. But as the night drew on into early morning (and later, regular morning) we knew we'd need to have some way to communicate with other people - be it coworkers, or family. We needed a solution.
The waiting room must have thought about this, as they had a machine where you could rent a power bank. It was relatively cheap, too - $4 for the first hour, with a daily max of $7. If you forget or neglect to return the power bank you get dinged $50. I'm not sure if that's *per day* or if you net yourself a power bank for $50, but your card is charged $50 until you return it, so...
Anyway this was a good stop-gap, and we took turns charging our phones. We didn't run down the battery2, which we should have done; but at the time we thought we got just enough. Well, not quite. Eventually I resorted to powering down my phone for a bit, since I didn't really need it. Plus I wanted to try to sleep; I was tired enough, even though the chairs were not comfortable. Around 5am I ducked out of the hospital to take care of our dog, so I grabbed this business swag power bank we have for backup for our camera. We fully powered my wife's phone, but there wasn't enough left for mine. I think I got up to something like 35%. At that point I left my phone on, and turned airplane mode on & off. Luckily she was called into a room for the stitches when my phone was just getting below 20%, so all's well that ends well.
But that got me thinking about power banks. I thought about them before when we were travelling earlier this year, finding some relatively cheap ones at the airport. I almost picked one up, thinking that it would come in handy. But at the time I left it. My reasoning is that I often have a charger available to me, both at home and at work. There's a cable in the car, and it's more than likely there's somewhere for me to plug in. The amount of times I've thought "I should have a power bank!" was quite low and well below 5.
Naturally, twice this year we've now been in positions where one would have been handy. Once, we were stuck when the highway was closed. We still had power cables and a car, but we didn't want to be sitting in a car for hours. Then twice, this week at the hospital. But even if we had a power bank, we likely would not have had it with us either time.
What, then, is the solution? I could carry a power bank with me in my backpack and have one all the time, when I'm at work or travelling. But I wouldn't want to keep one in my car for any emergency, especially not when we frequently have temperatures over 30 C. I don't think below freezing temperatures are a concern but I don't want to test that, either. My wife could carry one in her purse, but that only helps her. And again...I didn't have my backpack, and my wife didn't have her purse.
What do other people do?