what's in a [wallet]

i'm in a predicament...and any answer to this little quandary, i fear will cause me to have to spend money...which i hate.

let's take a look at this "denim dilemma".

first of all, i can't remember the last time i bought a pair of jeans. i will wear a pair of jeans until they literally fall off of me...which happened once in college. i hate shopping for them, i hate trying them on, and i hate having to pay for them. the whole experience is just one big ordeal, that i'd rather just avoid.

secondly, i have a slightly large wallet...alright.... it's huge. i might as well be hauling around a purse in my back pocket. it's your typical george costanza wallet. it has however been an amazing accessory. i bought it in colorado, back in high school. i'm not sure what magical warehouse eagle creek makes there wallets in, but i wish they'd also make cars, because this wallet looks just as good as the day i bought it. it was exactly what i was looking for at the time. i had started driving a few years back and wanted something "grown-up" to house my newly acquired drivers license in. it had lots of little pockets and zippers to house all sorts of items...which they've been doing steadily for 12 years now. over the years it's been the lead suspect in the cause of death of many pairs of pants, with the back pocket disintegrating completely off, rendering the rest of the pants useless.

thinking i could solve this problem simply, i started placing this canvas brick in my left pocket instead of the right. this only caused my world to fall into all sorts of chaos. i constantly felt like i had lost my wallet, i'd continually reach for it on the right side, and i discovered that i couldn't sit straight in chairs. i never noticed this when it was placed on the right side which can only mean having this wallet in my pockets over the last decade, had actually formed an ergonomic divot in my backside, which is as scary as it is funny.

changing strategies i decided to remove all unnecessary items that probably didn't have to be housed within it's velcro borders. this list includes:

a fifty cent piece
a sacajawea dollar
a colorado fishing license dated 7-11- 2000
my college i.d.
some old photos
gift cards from three different stores and two restaurants
a block buster card
a small stack of my old business cards
business cards from nearly all my friends
a punch card from a coffee house in manhattan, kansas
a punch card from a coffee house in portland, oregan

sorting through and removing the unneeded items successfully thinned the wallet down, however the stretched out pockets could no longer tightly hold the remaining items. after realizing a simple clean out might not be the answer, i now see myself having two options.

maybe it's time to get a different wallet. send the old wallet to the back of the closet, hidden away with my collection of "hard rock cafe" t-shirts, and get one of those really thin wallets all the "hip" trendy kids seem to love. it'll be less to carry around, and possibly save some wear and tear on my jeans.

or option two. i just admit to being [that guy]...you know...the [huge over stuffed and sometimes hard to fold, velcro wallet guy]. i'll keep using my current wallet as some sort of fashion barometer, keeping me up-dated when it's time to get a new pair of jeans. i'll spend my days at the boccie courts, with the rest of my peeps, arguing over which crooner is better...perry como or frank sinatra.