Wrong Time for Wallet Cleaning

When vacationing, it's important to have activities available to kids for long car rides. It's just as important to have activities ready for spouses for those same rides. A bored spouse can be a dangerous thing!

Let's back up for a moment, however. What guy likes to drive five hours with a fat wallet tucked in his back pocket? Exactly! So I do what any normal guy would do. I pull it out and set it in the central cavity below the radio in the middle.

Approximately three minutes into our five hour drive, my wife says, "What'cha got in there?"

"Stuff," I reply.

"This may be the right time to clean out your wallet."

My entire body tensed. Shock and dread coursed throughout my system."Be careful," I said, hoping to distract her with my wit and humor. "There's no telling what you may find in there! You might not like it!"

She proceeded, regardless of my distracting wit and humor.

The "stuff" in my wallet.

"You know you have more than one insurance card in here," she asked.

"Yes. I keep an old one in case I lose the newest. It's good to have a back up, you know."

"So if you lose 2017, 16, 15 and 14, you'll still have 2013 to show? Ridiculous..."

This was not going well.

“Why do you have two Sheetz cards?”

“The small one is a membership card. The large one is a gift card. One saves money, the other has money. Get it?”

“Sure honey," she said with a brief pause. "How much is on the card?”

“Probably enough for three hot dog purchases,” I replied three thoughtful miles later. I may have been driving, but I think I heard her eyes rolling.

After what seemed like an hour of calls to 1-800 phone numbers, she figured out which cards had expired, which had money and how much money they contained.

Once completed, my poor wallet could best be described as an old man – a worn out, tired old man who’d lost a lot of weight and looked like a deflated shell of himself.

“What lesson have we learned here,” my wife asked, her teacher side coming out.

“That I need a new wallet. And never leave your wallet where your wife can reach it. And…”

Funny. I thought I heard that eye rolling noise again.