For me, one of the best things about cooler weather is that I can wear a jacket and have more pockets. I have a couple hand warming pockets, a couple breast pockets, and one or two inside pockets in my leather coat. I can carry a small camera, maybe a folding umbrella and a bottle of water. But I wanted more. And the folks at ScottEVest put me in pocket Nirvana!! They sent me a vest to tell you about that has 22 hidden pockets!!!! 22! Really!

I have a fishing vest, and I wear it when I go fishing because it's a present from my wife. And it's got pockets, but not 22 of them. And it looks… well… less than fashionable. (Sorry honey.) I've looked with avarice at the vests worn by the many newspaper photographers I've known. They have pockets! And they look… well… even less fashionable. Not only that, but it clearly labels you as a target when you're in places that you'd rather not advertise what you're carrying.

Twenty two hidden pockets! What will I carry? What can I find to carry? Wow! The possibilities.

I took a deep breath and emptied the pockets of my old jacket. My camera slipped into one hidden pocket, then I zipped the vest up. The camera had vanished. No bulge.

Then my cell phone. My iTouch. Then I took the iTouch back out, and I put in my iTouch inside its super-heavy-duty Otterbox Armor case before slipping it into the mp3 player pocket. It fit! I added a reporter's notepad. And two pens in little pen pockets. And a spare set of keys on the key holder. And a folding umbrella in one pocket that accessed a tall vertical space inside the lining. And a digital voice recorder. And spare batteries. And business cards in the business card pocket. And a bottle of water held in its elastic band inside one pocket. And my sunglasses in their case inside the sunglasses pocket.

And a harmonica…

Okay, I admit I was running out of ideas faster than I was running out of space.

A Leatherman tool, small flashlight, a comb, a hotel's courtesy sewing kit. Now I wasn't just out of ideas, I was out of stuff.

Then, discovering the huge back pocket, I added my laptop computer to the load. Yes, a laptop! Inside a vest!

Well, the laptop did cause a bulge. But when I put four magazines in there, they vanished like everything else.

I tried putting in a small tripod just out of shear sillyness, dropping it almost completly into the deep "pub pocket". Unzipped and hanging loose, the tripod wasn't noticeable, but there just wasn't enough room for the tripod and my rippling sculpted bulging muscles (or the years of seconds of pasta). Maybe if I had gotten the large size...

It was fun just finding all the pockets (and I found one more as I was beginning to write this, a tiny pocket inside the camera pocket for holding a memory card and the two little change pockets in the corners of the hand-warmer pockets.) Then I looked at ScottEVest's website and discovered that I had barely begun to understand the design of the vest.

Every pocket has either a little buttonhole or open top that provides access to that space between the shell and lining. (The combination of the space and access points is Scott's patented "personal area network (PAN)".) That's so you can run earphones from the mp3 player through the PAN, out small holes in the collar, through secure loops, and have them convenient for your ears.

And the touch-sensitive screen of the iTouch can be viewed through the translucent fabric of its pocket and, incredibly, operated right through the fabric. It's not completely visible, but you can make them out enough to run the iTouch without pulling it from the pocket. For people with old-style iPods, you can reach the backside of the mp3 player from the hand-warmer pocket.

I considered what it would take to wire a power supply into the system, maybe keeping a car charger in one pocket and running it through the PAN to the iTouch, and dismissed the idea as way over the top. But when I read that the primary use for that big back pocket is a Camelbak water system, with the hose running through the PAN to the collar, I thought that maybe my idea wasn't so wild.

So now I have a jillion places to put more stuff than I've ever been able to carry before. And since it's a vest, I can start wearing it the instant summer begins to wane, and not wait for cold weather to hit.

With colder weather coming in, I'm drooling over the winter coats on ScottEVest's website and fantasizing about continuing my pocket ecstasy all through the Rhode Island winter.

If you're like me and have more stuff to carry than pockets to carry it in, check out the ScottEVest website. They have shirts, jackets, pants, vests, and more, all with hidden pockets and a way to sneak wires from your mp3 player to your ears.

Their website is at www.scottevest.com

About the author, Paul Pence: Not a life-long Rhode Islander, Paul got to Rhode Island as fast as he could. He has 25 years of writing experience and numerous publication credits including the Providence Journal, the East Greenwich Magazine, Weissmann Travel Reports, Travel Lady Magazine, Jackhammer, Your Skin and Sun, TravelNotes, TexWoman, and many others.