i L i n d . n e t

Meda thinks my attachment to an old, worn wallet is a sign of a deep-seated gender-based affliction. For a long time she’s been not too subtly hinting that it was time for a replacement.

“Every time you would pull it out, it would be an embarrassment,” Meda says

So she started bringing home suggested replacements. I put them down on a shelf where assorted stuff quickly accumulated on top of them, and they’ve remained there, unused, while the old standby wallet stayed in the pocket of my jeans.

I’m not exactly sure how long I’ve been carrying this wallet. There are vestiges a business card from Jeff Liu’s Island Art & Framing when it was on Queen Emma Street just below Vineyard, the card long gone but the ink transferred to the plastic pocket. Since that time, Jeff moved to a spot on Nuuanu and did business there for years, and then moved again to a spot on Kalakaua at the corner of Makaloa in about 2005. So I’m pretty sure that this wallet has accompanied me everywhere for eight years and probably longer.

I’ll admit that the first hole that broke through the back of the wallet gave me a momentary pause, but I quickly got used to the idea and accepted it as a badge of its veteran status. And I’ll also acknowledge that it’s looked pretty ratty –okay, very ratty– for more than a couple of years. So? Is your money worth less because it’s carried in a decrepit old wallet? I don’t think so. After all, in my view, it has remained perfectly serviceable, carrying what I need (and often a bit more) from point A to point B and back

She sees the world differently. A worn wallet, purse, or pair of shoes is an opportunity to shop. She tends to shop at Goodwill stores or the Salvation Army rather than the mall, but the shopping impulse is the same.

To me, the need to shop is a deterrent. If I can avoid shopping by making do for a while more, I’ll usually do it. But, under pressure, I agreed to a deeply discounted wallet found during a forced march through Macy’s in Windward Mall. I even took it out of the box when we got home, felt it’s smooth new leather. Then I put it on a shelf where it has been sitting for almost two years.

I’m guessing it’s a guy thing, both the aversion to shopping as well as the comfort of handling a familiar object. Not worn. Best seen as properly broken in, perhaps.

Meda just shakes her head. I shrug. What’s the rush?

Until just a few days ago, when I finally decided to retire my wallet before heading east for the Memorial Day weekend. I slowly removed its contents. The credit cards, including those from First Hawaiian Bank and Costco. Drivers license. Club cards from Safeway, Foodland, Borders. A state library card. Membership cards for the Honolulu Academy of Arts and Contemporary Museum. An HMSA card, and cards showing my qualification for dental insurance and drug coverage. An AAA card. Membership card for Investigative Reporters and Editors. Miscellaneous receipts that never migrated into the trash or storage, mostly several years old. A well aged blank check, waiting for the “just in case” moment.

Once emptied, the poor old thing suddenly did look old. Well, more than old. Worn out. Used up. It no longer looked so familiar, now emptied and somehow deflated. Take away its contents, eliminate its purpose, and suddenly the years of hard use took over and it succumbed. Kind of like with people. That thought was almost enough to make me take the most important contents and put them back into the old wallet to see if it could regain a measure of its former stature. But instead I decided to let it go and move on. As we sometimes must.