This week for my Creative Nonfiction class, I had to describe the contents of my wallet and reveal something about its owner.
The Wallet
A silent sigh escapes my lips as I unwrap the gift and realize it’s a new wallet. Not that I really mind because it is real leather, but I think about breaking in something new. I mean, the old one is already shaped to me and my back pocket. When I get a new one, I feel goofy for at least a couple of weeks.
This means that I have to go through the entire process of reordering my wallet to new pockets and dividers. I always put my two credit cards in this one pocket on the left hand side. One’s my minimal credit card that hardly has any limit and is used for dire emergencies and the other is just the debit card from the checking account. Behind those, I realize, are several grocery store cards from stores that aren’t even in my town anymore. Oh, there’s my Barnes & Noble membership card.
I have this other pocket for cards that I don’t even really use. They are there for comfort and emergency. My health insurance card adheres to my American Airlines frequent flyer card because it still has some of that sticky gum substance that attaches them to the original mailing.
When did they grow up? I ponder as I stare at the pictures. My two beautiful daughters are smiling at me in one of the old Christmas pictures. Man, that’s gotta be at least three years old. I take out a couple and a piece of paper falls into my lap. My oldest daughter made me her own ID card. She even put her little fingerprint on it from an inkwell. On the back is one of those picture booth photos from the mall. I am squeezing her and my wife with a huge smile. This is even before the newest daughter was around.
“What are you smiling at?” my wife asks as she brings me a plate of Christmas chocolate torte, a generational family tradition. “Do you like your new wallet?”
I put the newly filled wallet in my left breast pocket. I press on it slightly, noticing that she is even more beautiful than in that picture. “I love it.” I may not need half the cards in it, but I need this wallet for more than money.
The Wallet
A silent sigh escapes my lips as I unwrap the gift and realize it’s a new wallet. Not that I really mind because it is real leather, but I think about breaking in something new. I mean, the old one is already shaped to me and my back pocket. When I get a new one, I feel goofy for at least a couple of weeks.
This means that I have to go through the entire process of reordering my wallet to new pockets and dividers. I always put my two credit cards in this one pocket on the left hand side. One’s my minimal credit card that hardly has any limit and is used for dire emergencies and the other is just the debit card from the checking account. Behind those, I realize, are several grocery store cards from stores that aren’t even in my town anymore. Oh, there’s my Barnes & Noble membership card.
I have this other pocket for cards that I don’t even really use. They are there for comfort and emergency. My health insurance card adheres to my American Airlines frequent flyer card because it still has some of that sticky gum substance that attaches them to the original mailing.
When did they grow up? I ponder as I stare at the pictures. My two beautiful daughters are smiling at me in one of the old Christmas pictures. Man, that’s gotta be at least three years old. I take out a couple and a piece of paper falls into my lap. My oldest daughter made me her own ID card. She even put her little fingerprint on it from an inkwell. On the back is one of those picture booth photos from the mall. I am squeezing her and my wife with a huge smile. This is even before the newest daughter was around.
“What are you smiling at?” my wife asks as she brings me a plate of Christmas chocolate torte, a generational family tradition. “Do you like your new wallet?”
I put the newly filled wallet in my left breast pocket. I press on it slightly, noticing that she is even more beautiful than in that picture. “I love it.” I may not need half the cards in it, but I need this wallet for more than money.
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