Wallet

What do the contents of a person’s wallet reveal about its owner? Let’s take a look inside my own billfold and see what we find.

• Massachusetts driver’s license: Makes known my full name, date of birth, address, height (5’10”), eye color (brown), need for corrective lenses, and intention to donate my organs after death. Photo shows what I look like when a surly Registry of Motor Vehicles employee orders me to remove my corrective lenses and wipe that grin off my face.
• MBTA CharlieCard: Suggests I take public transit in Boston, have masochistic tendencies.
• American Airlines–branded credit card and Bank of America debit card: Do these reveal my financial cluelessness? Spot-on, if so.
• Cards for health insurance, vision insurance, prescription benefit, and dental appointment reminder: I suppose these indicate I’m employed (and I am), but I’m insured through my spouse, who gets better benefits. I don’t know whether carrying these cards around gives the impression that I’m a hypochondriac, but I am that, too.
• Revival coffee shop loyalty card: I am just four orders away from earning a free coffee.
• Ventra ticket for riding the el in Chicago: Suggests masochistic tendencies do not evaporate when a person goes out of town.
• Business cards of two freelance writers I recently met: These are in the part of the wallet where cash is supposed to go. Perhaps these cards supply hints that I’m a writer? The complete absence of money inside is another dead giveaway.

I don’t have any photos or other sentimental keepsakes in my wallet. As far as I recall, I have never felt the need to hold such items on my person at all times, unless you count the period in my early twenties when I couldn’t bring myself to throw away a business card I once found placed under the windshield wiper of my car when I lived in Chicago.

The front of the card advertised an automotive enterprise of some sort. On the back, a secret admirer had written in blue ink something like:

Hey Arkansas! [I still had an Arkansas license plate at the time.] You’re pretty cute. Call. I was the guy who [and then he mentioned some traffic-related interaction I didn’t remember at the time and certainly don’t recall now].

Though I held onto the card for a while, I never dialed the number on the front. I couldn’t imagine how the ensuing conversation would even begin. Hello, I’m calling because you or possibly one of your coworkers thinks I’m cute and I’d like to parlay that into a gratifying sexual encounter sounds maybe a little too direct.

Still, I do think it’s a shame that I never connected with my anonymous follower in person. We probably would have made a fine match, given my mental image of a gay auto mechanic (I picture Marlon Brando in The Wild One) and my weakness for words of affirmation. After all, that’s my secondary love language (following quality time).

As for what I had to offer in this imaginary love affair, well, I refer you to the aforementioned masochistic tendencies.

But hey, everything worked out and I ended up with a spouse anyway. And on most days, I prefer the flesh-and-blood reality to any conjectured might-have-beens. For starters, might-have-beens can’t add you to their health insurance.