My Back Pocket Never Felt So Good

For years I have struggled with the heartbreak of an unwieldy billfold. I’ve traditionally gone with the trifold wallet designed to ride in the hip pocket. The problem, of course, is the things are too large. Sit down on it for just a few minutes and all you can think about is moving it out from under your butt. For the last four years I’ve owned a particularly thick billfold that’s uncomfortable even when slap empty. Throw a driver’s license, a few pictures of my kid, insurance cards, other miscellanea and, on rare occasions, a few money bills, and the leather devil became positively tome like. To make matters worse, I always feel compelled to put crap in my wallet that I don’t need to haul around all the time: gift cards, library cards, business cards and my hunter education card issued in 1985 by instructor Mike Bunn. In order to find some solace, I usually take the wallet from my hip pocket at the first chance. When I get in my truck I take it out and throw it in the little cubby hole under the stereo. When I had a job, I’d take it out and put it on my desk. Now that I’m a nontraditional college student, I put it in my backpack. It’s a wonder I’ve never lost a billfold.

For lo these many years I’ve kept my eye peeled for a solution to this vexation. Earlier this year I even auditioned a bifold wallet but found it too floppy for my tastes and I went back to the hellish, yet not floppy, trifold. I’ve considered using a money clip, but I hardly ever carry cash and money clips don’t do the job for the things I generally need to carry: receipts, a debit card, one credit card, driver’s license and the list of life goals I scribbled down in 1988.

This Christmas my wallet troubles vanished like a ghost. And, I’m not the least bit ashamed to say, my entire existence changed with it. While suffering through an excursion to Belk with Gina and Abby a couple of months ago, I came across this front-pocket wallet. It seemed miraculous, a cross between a wallet and a money clip, thin enough to not cause spinal injury. It fairly vibrated with promise. I showed it to Abby and told her I wanted her to get it for me for Christmas. When I got up Christmas morn to see what Santa had brought, I was showered with an embarrassment of gifts. The best Christmas giftwise I’ve ever experienced: a new camera, a fancy camera bag, a new lens, a great camera strap, a $100 gift card to Best Buy, new Saddlebred™ house shoes. Just writing out that list makes me feel bad. But, as I realized by Christmas afternoon, the best gift was this wallet. It’s got slots for a couple of cards, a magnetic money clip and a deep cleft in the center for receipts. Just look at it. It’s a marvel of sartorial engineering. For the last few days I’ve been annoying everyone I’ve come in contact with by whipping out this beauty and intoning words that would be fitting in a J. Peterman catalog:

“This stylish front-pocket wallet will free you from the tyranny of that hip-pocket scourge, the trifold. Place your most important cards and documents, and only your most important cards and documents, between the folds of its fine Corinthian leather and then slip it in your front pocket where it will reside unnoticed until you need to tip the valet at your exclusive men’s club. Your hindquarters will thank you from the bottom of your bottom.”

I’m free now. I’ve never felt so unfettered. If I die tomorrow, you be assured it was with a happy, contented heart.

(I do realize that this whole thing is Seinfeldian on a number of levels. Perhaps irritatingly so.)