What's In YOUR Wallet?

My wallet has grown fat. No, not with money but with plastic and assorted scraps of paper where I jot down very important websites or disembodied email addresses I cannot live without and restaurant coupons which probably expired last year, and tickets from the dry cleaner who doesn't need them because they have my phone number but mostly with essentials such as my four library cards two of which I've just decided to remove (Beverly Hills and L.A. County) but that doesn't help much since I must carry my Kaiser card and Peggy’s AARP card for prescriptions and would never leave home without my Auto Club membership or car insurance card and business card from my trusted auto repair shop to cover other contingencies and then there are punch cards from a frozen yogurt shop I haven't been to in three years, one from a carwash I no longer use and the Video rental store all of which I'm ready to jettison leaving me now with a few pictures of grandchildren, preferred cards from the three markets and two drug store reward cards (whatever that means), four doctor's business cards (you never know), a Barack Obama card I think I could leave home, a museum card, driver's license, organ donor card, ATM card un-used since our last European trip and two credit cards (Master and AMEX).

Having now removed all of them my wallet is flat. I shall now put them back, one by one, in order of importance, and assign the rest to my dresser drawer under a rubber band.

All of which reminds me of the bubblegum cards under crossed rubber bands bulging out of my back pocket through childhood until they vanished one day. I believe that was the same day I realized they were probably worth hundreds of dollars. Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio... and childhood?

I must make a note of that but if I do, my wallet will start rising again. I can already see one side is triangulating a few degrees like a devouring mouth. Maybe I should transfer it from my side to back pocket like most people where I can sit on it until it behaves.