I needed a compass.

My father gave me a compass. It has a brushed steel casing, and the interior is black, with white and green lettering. I always knew that west lay to the right of my house, and east was between the house with the screaming baby (there has always been a screaming baby, even though they have lived behind us for almost a decade) and the pink house which has been under construction forever. Oh, I actually knew where north for what it was, and not just as a point between east and west. This was because my neighbour, a Feng Shui enthusiast. stopped me in the middle of the road when I was in my tenth standard, and told me to position my study table so that it would face the north. But north lay in the corner between the door and the wall, so that never happened. That was the first and the last time I ever spoke to him. He died last month. This month, they painted his house for the first time since I moved to Saltlake. Which was, what, fifteen years ago?
Anyway, I am going to make a survival kit of sorts, and the compass goes in first. I will carry the kit around with me at all times. You know, just in case apocalypse struck.