Tag: wallet

“Do you promise not to swear?”

It is my wife’s way of preparing me for bad news.

“Why?”

“I won’t tell you until you promise not to swear.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“You put your wallet and keys in the washer again.”

“DRAT!”

“You promised you wouldn’t swear.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did so.”

“Drat is not a swear word.”

“But you made it sound like one.”

“That doesn’t make it swearing.”

“Yeah, but it is equally unpleasant.”

Okay, she has me there.

I do get upset when I forget to take my wallet out of my pants and I wash my pants every day after walking my dog around the block.

My block is seven miles around.

Most of that walking is done on what the township calls gravel roads but I have yet to find a single pebble on our local roads. Most of it is sand. More accurately, it is dirt and when wet, it is mud. So I wash my walking clothes every day and with amazing regularity, I also wash whatever is in my pockets after I forget to empty them.

My wallet looks like something that has been frequently washed. It is scuffed, worn, torn and threadbare and definitely in need of replacement, but a new wallet is an extravagance that I deny myself, mostly because I cannot be trusted with anything nice.

And everything in the my wallet has suffered.

I once carried pictures of those dearest to me, but now all I have is pulp and yes, I still carry the pulp. I guess that makes me sentimental.

My social security, medicare and insurance cards are pulp too, yet I hang onto them, not out of sentimentality but rather if called upon to present them, at least I could present pulp.

But it is the money I worry about. Granted currency is made from cotton, not paper, and the ink the government uses is just as resistant to wash water and detergent as are my clothes – but my worries concern the drying process.

Whereas the washing machine does an excellent job of drenching my wallet, the dryer takes a hand-off approach, which means I have to set everything in my wallet out to dry, otherwise run the risk of sitting on something disagreeable.

And therein lies the rub.

Whenever I set my money out to dry, someone I know and love interprets that as an opportunity to pilfer.

Knowing this is why I utter such unpleasanties.

“You needn’t have sworn,” my wife informs me.

“Sorry, but I hate it when I wash my wallet.”

“You didn’t.”

“What?”

“You loaded the washer but forgot to turn it on, like you ALWAYS do!”

“DRAT!”

“There you go, swearing again.”