My Old Goat

Are you ready for this? Are you ready for Wierd and Whacky Fact About Cipriano # 452?
← I have had the same wallet since December of 1983.
My girlfriend Suzy got me this wallet, for my birthday. And since my birthday is December 4th, I guess my wallet has just turned 23, this past Monday!
Wild, huh?
You probably have many questions you would like to ask me, right about now, am I correct?
Like this one……. “Cipriano, have you ever considered maybe buying a new wallet?”
→ “No.”
This one works just fine!
23 years is a long time, one just doesn’t discard an old friend like that! Not even for these new-fangled “billfolds” of our modern day and age.
This wallet is made by Tilley©.
English goatskin!
That’s the best kind of goat! The English ones. Real durable.
The plastic insert portion, where I keep licenses, credit-cards and pictures of Jack, those things commit suicide every year or so, and I just buy the refills, but the wallet itself…. hell no, it’ll be around long after I myself am deader than three banjos.
And I do this neat thing with this wallet. I flip it open real quick, put it up to my ear and say stuff like, “Kirk to Enterprise.” I guess I’ve probably done that gag somewhere upwards of…. sixteen thousand times, give or take a few? People love it. If they laugh real good, I’ll sort of keep going… “Beam me up, Scotty. There’s no intelligent life here.”
See, you can’t even do that with a lot of the newer wallets!

Question #2: “Hasn’t anyone else ever bought you a wallet as a gift?”
→ “Yes.”
I made her take it back to the store. I even went with her. Together, we traded the wallet for a shirt.
I am a one-wallet man!
Seemingly, I wallet for life!

Question #3: “Do you wear the wallet in your back pocket?”
→ “No.”
I don’t want to mar the natural curvature of my buttock area.
Plus, it’s just uncomfortable and it looks stupid.

So, why all this thinking about my wallet?
Well, let me tell you. I just did something really really stupid.
I am in the Starbucks section of a very big, bustling, bookstore. Even as I type this, I am still here in the place, so the trauma is still fresh, yes it is!
I was looking through my wallet for some reason, took it out of my jacket pocket and was rifling through it, actually I discarded a few items that are out of date. Housecleaning.
A book on yonder shelf caught my eye and I got up to go look at it, leaving my Mac laptop and my wallet, both of them OPEN on the table. The book distracted me, and I wandered a bit more, and then I went to the washroom.
[Seriously, do you have to tell us everything?]

Well, when I finally got back to this table and saw my wallet laying there, I nearly had a seizure. I mean, this place is crawling with people. And they all look like thieves, I am serious!
For about five or ten minutes, all of my ID, my cash, credit cards, licenses, membership card for the Roger Waters© Fan Club…. all of this was left vulnerable and exposed.
The fact that no one stole it must mean that we are truly meant to be together, this wallet and me. Destined for togetherness, perhaps for another 23 years, who knows.
Sure, part of its internal organs are held together by some clear packing tape…. but hey, so are some of mine!

DON’T THROW AWAY WHAT YOU STILL CAN LOVE!
&
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE AN ENGLISH GOAT!

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