For the backstory on this series of posts see here.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these. As a matter of fact it’s been over two years. Just a bit overdue don’t you think? OK, here we go…

Describe in detail an everyday object – a piece of fruit, a water bottle, or your beat-up old wallet.

The wallet one immediately caught my attention. Here’s a preview of what you can expect…

The current wallet I carry is old and worn. If it was up to me, I’d carry the same wallet until it physically disintegrated. Probably not in such explosive fashion as poor George up there, but pretty close. My wife gives me a new wallet for Christmas every five years or so and forces me to use it, thus preventing wallet Armageddon. So, let’s get to describing this thing.

My wallet is brown and made out of some leathery substance. I looked inside to see if I could find something to tell me what it’s actually made of, but all I could find is a a little tag that says Made in India. I hope it wasn’t made in a sweatshop. It does smell like leather though, so I am going to go with that. As I said before, it’s old (there will probably be a new one under the tree this year) and you can see worn creases throughout the leather. There is no condom ring in this wallet. You would have to go back to teenage Ari’s wallet to see that one. Unfortunately, that condom expired, not with the “explosive force” that teenage Ari had hoped for, but due to old age.

When you open the wallet it reveals two sides for keeping various cards and a section that runs the length of the wallet for keeping cash. There is no spot for pictures in this wallet, such as the see through plastic sleeves you could flip through to view them. Nowadays, hardly anyone keeps physical pictures in their wallets. They are all on our phones. I did have pictures in there in previous wallets, but certain water related events such as this one, eventually destroyed my pictures and I joined the masses that scroll on their phones when showing family, pets, and what they ate for dinner last night.

There are two sections in the cash area separated by a thin nylon divider. When I travel for business I use the two areas to keep my travel money and personal money apart. Currently, there is no cash at all in either of those sections. In fact, I hardly carry cash at all anymore when it is just as easy to whip out my check card at nearly every point of purchase I frequent. What is in there is two receipts from McDonald’s and one from a pet store. All three receipts are over a year old. Why the hell are these still in there? BZZZZZZ! Those just went into the shredder. Wow, this post is helping me clean my wallet out. Not that much really though. I’m a notorious pack rat and that will probably be the only thing I get rid of. Another item in the cash area is a little sticky note with my wife’s cell phone number on it. You don’t know your wife’s cell phone number, you ask? Sure I do. It’s speed dial button #2 (it would be #1 but that’s preset to voicemail, and while I don’t love VM more than my wife, I can’t change it.) Seriously though, who has their significant other’s phone number memorized when you can just store it in your contacts? I keep that sticky there in case I am pried lose from my phone for some reason and I need to call her. The only other item in this area is a price club key tag to our local grocery store. It used to hang on my key ring until it’s state deteriorated to the point where it fell off and I had to keep it in my wallet. It still works though, well, somewhat works. I often have to scan it more than once to get it to work. Why don’t I just get a new one? Because I’m going to ride this train until it crashes through the end of the line barrier. That’s just man thinking for you there, or at least this man’s thinking.

The section for inserting cards has the various usual array. Inserted is my bank card, credit card (I try not to take this one out if at all possible), my work travel credit card, and several different medical insurance cards, which I’ve had to take out much too often lately. Underneath this section is a spot you can shove miscellaneous stuff. I have two more cards in there. My REI Co-op membership card and my you’re an old fuck now card, otherwise known as an AARP card. On the opposite side is another one of those miscellaneous sections. In there is an old prepaid phone card that you can reload with minutes. I probably haven’t used this card since I got my first flip phone years ago. However, I still hang on to it in case my work takes me to countries where my cell phone doesn’t work and I have to (GASP!) use a land line.

The last part is a section with two plastic see through windows that you can flip out once the wallet is open. It’s for easily displaying ID type cards but for some reason I have a Best Buy rewards card and a Top Golf membership card in one of the windows. Have you ever been to Top Golf? I’m not an avid golfer but a friend of mine talked me into going once. It was pretty fun whacking balls from a third story open bay at targets on the range while be served alcoholic beverages (back when I could drink). However, it’s quite pricey and I’ve only used it once, but of course it’s still in my wallet and I’m not shredding it. Who knows? I might go back one day to hit balls while I get jazzed on Mt. Dew. The item in the other window I have, of course, is my Virginia drivers license. The one with a picture of a grumpy guy who had to stand in line for three hours at the DMV to get his license renewed because Virginia recently changed it’s policy about issuing renewed licenses through the mail using stored pictures that were not over ten years old, to making you come in every time to get a new picture.

So, there’s the description of my beat-up old wallet. Not quite as bad as George’s, but I can guarantee you if I have to drive over an hour that thing is coming out of my back pocket and into the center dash storage bin. Otherwise, I would suffer from right butt cheek numbness. Sorry you had to go on that tour. It’s the book’s fault. It made me write about it. Well, to be honest, it didn’t say I had to write about my wallet, but I figured it would be marginally more interesting than a piece of fruit, water bottle, or say, the pillow on my bed. Although, if it could talk it might have some interesting things to say. I could have called it Pillow Talk. OFW, I’m not going to rewrite this thing. Maybe I’ll use that for a future post.

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