What's in Your Wallet?

My wallet is a trusty old leather bi-fold jobber that I got for Christmas 6 or 7 years ago. Granted, it was an expensive model, but I never expected it to hold up this long.

I was reminded of this because at my current client site, I have to scan my access card in the elevator before it will take me anywhere. This is pretty common these days (I've been scanning to get in where I work for years) , and for convenience I simply keep the badge in my wallet. Usually I can just scan my whole wallet (or my whole butt if my hands are full) without removing the badge and it works great.

When I took out my wallet to scan it today, I realized that it's getting pretty thick, and I probably have a lot of junk in there that needs to be thrown out. What is it about wallets and purses that makes them prone to collecting crap? What is it about the crap in you collect in your wallet that makes keeping it irresistible?

The world may never know an answer to these questions, but I decided to see just what excess baggage I've been carrying around with me. Here's what I found:

• 4 Credit cards
• 2 Debit cards
• My Driver's License
• The claim ticket to get my car out of the parking garage
• An Aetna medical card from my wife's last employer (hence it is no longer valid)
• 5 business cards - one is mine from an old job, one is my wife's from 2 jobs ago, one is from a musician I met on a cruise, and two are from former colleagues. None of them are important now.
• My Dave and Buster's Power Card that I've only used once despite dragging it around all year
  
• A student ID from Ocean County College (that I only attended for one semester) in New Jersey, that expired 08/31/2001
• My Sam's Club membership card that expired in May
• A very tattered and worn Social Security card
• 4 video store membership cards, 3 of which don't exist in Maryland
• My "Death from Above" calling card. (This is something I picked up while serving in the 82nd Airborne Division 10 years ago. The front side has a picture of a skull wearing a beret and holding a knife in its teeth over the top of what appears to be the Ace of Spades with wings. Under this is the text "Death from Above" The back side reads: "I am an American Paratrooper. If you are recovering my body, kiss my cold dead ass!!!") That's nice to whip out during boring business meetings.
  
• My Smart Trip card for the Washington DC Metro
• A Graffiti cheat sheet for my cell phone that runs on Palm OS 4
  
• My Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards membership card
• My MSDN Universal subscription card
• My PADI Open Water Diver SCUBA certification card
• The electronic key to get into the office of my current client that started all of this

In case you're wondering why you don't see any pictures listed, there are several reasons. First, wallet pictures have a nasty tendency to be years out of date. Do you really want to see a picture of my 14-year-old daughter when she was two? I keep the newer (digital) pictures in my phone, so I whip that out to bother people instead of the sweat-soaked wallet. (Sometimes I still bother people with the sweat-soaked wallet, but that's more for my own amusement than to show them pictures.)

I guess I'll clean out my wallet and make some room for new crap. If nothing else, it will improve my posture.