I was out with a close friend a few weeks ago when I had to take out my wallet to pay for something. The second my friend saw it, he was like, “Whoa holy shit Drew, you’ve got the Costanza wallet!” I got defensive about this, because HEY MAN FUCK YOU FISH, but also because I believed that everything I carried in my wallet was necessary to keep on my person. I am not a money clip guy, nor am I one of those perverts with a folding phone case that doubles as some wallet/day planner. I need a proper wallet, and I need to put a lot of vital documents in it.
Or do I? This morning, I took another look at my wallet—which is quite old, because someone I love gave it to me when I graduated from college, and I don’t want to part with it—and thought to myself, OK yeah, it’s kinda thick. But I don’t keep my wallet in my back pocket, so it’s not like it’s gonna give me scoliosis. I can keep it in my front pocket and bulging out for all to see, because I’m well past the form-over-function phase of my daily accessorizing. But the question of thickness still nags at me. Jabs from close friends stick in your craw like that. Goddamn Fish.
To that end, I decided that I should do an inventory of my wallet, pictured above, and share it with you, the reader. I’m sure this won’t prove damaging to my privacy or my self-esteem in any way. Here now is what’s inside my treasured billfold:
- Cash
- Driver’s license
- Two credit cards
- ATM card
- Insurance card
- Dental insurance card
- Car insurance info
- State medical cannabis ID
- Expired AAA club info
- A poem my late grandpa wrote for me from 1991
- A single Egyptian pound note
- Four very old, wallet-sized photos of my wife and kids
- Safeway club card
- WGA card
- Library card
- My wife’s business card
- DC Metro SmarTrip card
- Organ donor card
- Cochlear implant patient ID card (very thick)
- Two NYC Metrocards
- My COVID vaccine card, which I haven’t been asked to brandish in over two years
- Paper receipts, but only if I’m on a business trip and expensing crap
OK, so the bolded shit can go. I accept those items as needless padding (wife's biz card was tossed with her blessing; WGA card was consigned to my desk). But I might need any one of those other items when I’m out and about and emergency strikes. Or if I need to save three dollars on groceries. So now, it’s my turn to ask YOU a stupid question, Defectors: What belongs in a wallet and what doesn’t?
