The new wallet

 EVERY FOUR YEARS I get a new wallet. Or, more accurately, Sheryl gets me a new wallet. 

Wallets are like socks. Even if they get old and smell and have holes in them, you don't throw them away. Why? They hold everything in, whether it’s toes or credit cards. And so what if the leather, or pleather, or whatever they call it, starts peeling off like a bad sunburn?

On our morning dog walk the other day, Sheryl noticed the old crumbling wallet and announced she was getting me a new one. I'd been meaning to do it. Really. 

"If you remember I got you one a few years ago. I got two actually," she said. "I wasn't sure which one you would want. So we gave the other one to Clark."

"Clark" is Dr. Clark Andelin, a baby delivery doctor at Blessing Hospital. Back then he was a guitar student. Now I see him weekly when I'm delivering stuff to his 927 Broadway office. These wallets hold a lot of irony and I bet Clark has no idea his wallet is four years old. I wonder if it looks as battered as me. And my old wallet.

According to Sheryl's shopping history (a thing, really), I got a new wallet in 2016, too. If she says so, it's true.

The good thing about getting a new wallet is you clean out the old one and fine stuff you had no idea existed, like old college IDs and membership cards to historical societies. Geesh! I finally found that elusive orange Dunlop guitar pick I like so much.

So I have a new wallet. And I feel like a new man. Actually, I feel like a man who has a wallet that isn't broken in yet. I need to sit on it and lose it a few times before it actually feels like it's mine.

Thank you Sheryl and thank you old wallet for the memories, and onward with new leather or pleather!