Anybody Want a Free Wallet?
After years of service, my old wallet had been slipped in and out of my back pocket so frequently, sat upon for so many hours, and accidentally run through the laundry machine so many times that it was finally time for a replacement. I had gone to JC Penny several months ago to get a new wallet that looked exactly like the old one, but when I went to check out the line was absurdly long and I didn’t feel like waiting half an hour to buy a new wallet when the old one was still hanging in there (if only I’d known what was in store for me). But, alas, the old one just wasn’t cutting it anymore.
While getting a new wallet might seem like a relatively simple task, this has turned into quite the quest for two key reasons. The first is that I’m incredibly particular when it comes to my wallet. Some might say that I’m incredibly particular with everything I buy, but it’s even worse when it comes to my wallet. When I was a kid I always thought my dad’s wallet was really cool. He always had a slightly larger than normal bi-fold wallet made out of smooth, marbled brown leather. I remember the way it had a slight curve to it from sitting in his back pocket for so long and how the picture insert in the middle would flop around whenever he opened it to reveal two rows of credit and membership cards arranged in succession like a choir. And there was always the clear window that showed the driver’s license of whichever state we were living in at the time right next to the military ID that never changed. Most of all, I was always amazed at how big it looked. Being a child, I always had a tri-fold wallet myself because it was the only kind that would fit in my childhood sized pockets. I fear the consequences of delving too deeply into it, but somehow, in the depths of my twisted subconscious, this led to my associating having a big, brown, leather, bi-fold wallet with being a man, and anything that deviates from that formula being for little boys. Why I choose this one trait of my dad’s to try to emulate while going out of my way to try NOT to become my father in so many other respects is a question I’ll leave to any pop-psychologists out there, but it’s true – without the right kind of wallet, I feel like less of a man.
The second reason my search for a new wallet has become such an epic quest has to do with the recent site of all of my life’s seeming cross roads: the Galleria Mall (see blog of March 26). Surely somewhere in the Galleria I could find the perfect wallet. So I started browsing.
Now, I know things in the Galleria can be pricey, so it’s not that I had some delusion that I was going to be able to pick up a wallet for $5 or anything, but I quickly realized that most of the stores in there were simply out of my price range. I mean, if I spend $395 on a wallet then I won’t have any money to put in it, thus making it kind of pointless. Not to mention I just have a hard time paying more than $50 for something that’s going to spend most of it’s days soaking up my ass sweat (not that my ass really sweats that much).
Eventually I found my way into Brookstone figuring it would probably be cheaper and, lo and behold, I found exactly what I was looking for for about $35. Perfect! The only weird thing was that in the place where you put your driver’s license, this wallet had a kind of mesh rather than a clear piece of plastic. That didn’t seem like a big deal, so I headed to the cash register ready to pay for my purchase, ne masculinity. But then it occurred to me that the mesh would probably make it pretty hard to read the ID and that I’d better try it before I spent any money. Sure enough, the mesh only made it visible enough to be able to tell that it was an ID, but made it impossible to actually read anything on the ID or to even see the picture well enough to know it was my ID. WTF! Was the clear plastic THAT much more expensive to manufacture? The crazy thing is that the description of the wallet on the box actually BRAGGED about the mesh “feature.” Were these things designed by Mac? Did I almost stumble into an iWallet (although it wasn’t that soul sucking white color – fucking Macs)? Regardless, I put it back and headed back into the mall to continue my search for my manhood.
After another hour of frustration I decided that if one store could rescue this ill-fated quest to satisfy my bizarre mess of Freudian contradictions through the purchasing of a piece of leather folded in half it would be the crown jewel of all Galleria stores: Banana Republic! After all, the BR Luxe card was designed to look like the exact same pattern of leather as my dad’s old wallets, which had to be a good sign – an omen, even. And on top of that, what better way to carry my beautiful Banana Republic credit card than in an equally beautiful Banana Republic wallet? The whole walk there I was chastising myself for not just going to The Republic from the very beginning.
When I got there, however, I could immediately tell that all was not well with the Banana. Instead of the usual nondescript salesperson who usually greets me as I enter my shopping haven, I was met by this weird looking guy with a buzzcut who had done waaaayyyyy too many bench presses and not enough back exercises, so he had that overly-built, hunched over look to him. On top of that, he spoke as though he was a drill sergeant screaming orders as he hurried over to me and declaimed “All pants – 30% off! We also have new shirts – over there!” I had to fight back the urge to shout “Sir, yes, sir!” and salute him. Instead, I just said thanks and started browsing a bit (sure, I was there for a wallet, but I was in The Republic – might as well look around). In the meantime, this crazy salesperson (we’ll call him Benchpress McGee from now on) stalked around the store belting out the phrase “Do you need help!” to anyone who didn’t seem to be totally focused on a definite shopping task.
I headed over to the sale rack and there were these two guys next to me looking through the rack as well. I overheard one of the guys, who was looking at a dress shirt, say “I’m not sure what my neck size is.” Like a puma pouncing on prey at the first sign of weakness, Benchpress popped seemingly out of nowhere and screamed “You have a question!”
The guy looked kind of startled as he said “No, I just wasn’t sure of the size.”
With an intensity that shook me to my very soul, Benchy barked “You want me to measure you!”
I can only imagine the horrific image that must have been flashing through this guy’s mind of Benchy with a tape measure and a crazed look in his eye. After a few moments of panicked shock, he managed to stutter out “N, no thanks, I th, think I can figure it out.”
Afraid that I’d be next on Benchy’s Retail Bootcamp roster I headed to the other side of the store to look at dress clothes for work. After looking around a while longer, I was done browsing and ready to regain focus on my real reason for being there: wallets. I looked around for just a moment, wondering where the wallets would be. Alas, that was the window of opportunity that Benchy’d been waiting for – he was on me in an instant: “What do you need!” I asked if they had any wallets, but he didn’t know. Not to fear, he headed to the check out register as though he’d just been given a mission to rush into a war zone and rescue fallen members of his platoon. He returned shortly thereafter to inform me that the Banana doesn’t carry wallets!
So, after paying for my two new shirts and a pair of pants (it’s the Banana after all) I left the store now burdened with two very frightening and harsh realities – I would be haunted by nightmares of Benchy and his Tape-measure of Terror for weeks to come and, worst of all, words I never thought I would ever have to utter: The Republic failed me! If I can’t go to The Republic in my times of need, where am I supposed to go? I’m not sure I want to live in a world where the greatest clothing store in the world doesn’t carry wallets. In light of this distressing turn of events, I had no choice but to resort to drastic measures – so I went to (shudder at the thought) Macy’s.
What was really bizarre was that in such a huge store I couldn’t find a single salesperson to tell me where the wallets were. Say what I might about Benchpress McGee, at least he did, in the end, offer help – frighteningly intense help, but help nonetheless. After about twenty minutes of searching around this maze of a store (including having to push past several people who apparently thought that just because it was broken it was okay to go up the down escalator with their hands so full of shopping bags that it was impossible for me to get by) I finally found the men’s accessories department and zeroed in on the wallets. Unfortunately, right as I approached them I felt an undeniable urge to pee. As particular as I am about my wallet, I knew that browsing through them was not going to be a short process, so I was going to have to go to the bathroom before I could fully focus on the task at hand. I looked all over the men’s department but couldn’t find a bathroom anywhere (this is always a huge problem anywhere in the Galleria – I once left the mall and just went in an alley for this very reason).
Finally, I found a salesperson and asked where the men’s room was. She told me that it was up stairs next to the women’s petite! Of course - why wasn't that the first place I looked? So after another fifteen minutes of figuring out where the hell the women’s petite section was, I finally found the men’s room. What was startling was that it wasn’t as though this is where all of the restrooms were – just the men’s room! I don’t know where the women’s restroom was, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s probably somewhere around the men’s underwear section.
What was even more startling, though, was that the custodian was cleaning the men’s room and had it roped off so no one could use it! By now I was about ready to explode and getting really frustrated with this ridiculous store. “Is it possible for me to use the bathroom?” I called into the bathroom hoping that I’d hear some guy’s voice say sure, just be careful of the wet floor. Instead, I heard a female voice yell back with clear agitation, “Not while I’m in here!” I asked how long she’d be, and she said it’d be a while. Great.
For a fleeting moment the persistent lack of salespeople anywhere in the store tempted me to just find a secluded corner in the perfume section and just go, but then I reminded myself that this wallet was, after all, all about being a man, and men can hold it, dammit! So I headed back to the wallets and started browsing.
After looking at every wallet they had, I couldn’t find anything exactly right, but by now in addition to having to pee, the mall was getting ready to close, and I really needed to just get a fucking wallet. Eventually I found one for half price ($15) that was a leather bi-fold, but it was black instead of brown, and not quite as big as I like them to be. But oh well, maybe it would be healthy to slowly disassociate my masculinity from the size and color of my wallet – plus this might help in my lifelong quest to not turn into my father. So I settled.
But this was only the first step. Now that I’d found a wallet, I had to pay for it. After searching the entire bottom floor, I was convinced that Macy’s doesn’t actually hire salespeople. I found four different cash registers but not a single employee manning a single one of them. Finally, in the juniors section I found a woman who was ringing up this couple who had a huge pile of clothes. Still needing to pee so badly I could hardly stand it (why is it that kids who need to pee can get away with just holding their crotches to pinch it off, and adults can’t?) I thought about trying to find someone else to ring me up, but the prospects didn’t look good, so I just decided to wait. After finally ringing up, folding, and bagging all of this couple’s clothes, the cashier asked if they’d like to open a Macy’s credit card account to save 10%. Turns out, they wanted to do just that. To top it all off, the man (who was getting the card) didn’t speak a word of English, so his girlfriend had to translate every step of the application process for him. This was going to take a while, so I bailed.
I headed back up to the women’s section and, once again, began a search for a salesperson. In the meantime, I heard several announcements on the intercom informing me that the store was closing soon so could I please take my purchases to the register. That’s what I’d been trying to do for the past fifteen minutes. And I had to pee! At this point I was thinking “To hell with the deserted corner of the perfume department, I’m just going to drop trou and piss all over the next unmanned cash register I find!” Finally, I saw someone behind one of the jewelry counters and asked if he could ring me up. He asked me what it was and I told him it was a wallet. He immediately pulled his hands away as though I had coated the wallet box in the bubonic plague before he told me I’d have to take it back to the men’s department.
I refused to believe that this was true, so when I saw a woman at one of the regular cash registers I raced over to her and asked if I could check out. She said yes and proceeded to try to ring up the wallet. It came up on her screen as $0. She said apparently it would only ring up in the men’s department, so I’d have to go down there. I told her that I’d tried but there was no one there to do it. She rolled her eyes and said, “well I can’t sell you something that rings up for $0” and then walked away! Forget about the cash register, I was about ready to just pee all over her! I was thinking about leaving and forgetting about the wallet, but I had come so far already.
So, I headed back down to the men’s department. On the way there I heard yet another announcement about the store closing and the need for customers to bring their final purchases to the registers. I began to wonder if this was actually part of some big joke – that as soon as they make these announcements they all immediately hide; that underneath each cash register station there was an employing giggling with childish glee at the prank they were all collectively pulling. Or maybe customer service at Macy’s just sucks. Either way, I was beyond frustrated.
Back in the men’s department I FINALLY found a guy reorganizing the shoes who could ring me up but, lo and behold, the wallet still rang up for $0. Unlike the woman upstairs, however, he eventually figured out how to ring it up and it actually was half off of the already reduced price and only cost $7.50. I’m not sure if the extra $7.50 I saved was worth the permanent damage I had probably done to my bladder, but at this point I was willing to take any small victory. So, finally, after overcoming a problem with the credit card reader that required me to try three different cards before I was able to make this slightly inadequate wallet my own, my quest seemed over.
After the ordeal I’d just faced I needed a drink and a bathroom, so I headed to the restaurant in the Galleria where my roommate works since I knew they’d be able to provide me with both. Usually I don’t use the bathroom there because they have one of those guys who turns on the water for you in exchange for tips, which I hate both because it makes me uncomfortable to have someone help me use the restroom (I’m not three and this guy isn’t my mom) and because I bristle (yes bristle) at the prospect of having to pay to use the bathroom (I mean, I could just not tip him, but this guy works in a bathroom for god’s sake, I wouldn’t feel right stiffing him). But this time, I had to go so badly that I was willing to endure the awkwardness, and so glad to finally get relief that I almost felt like tipping the poor guy $20.
But there is ultimately more to the story. The moment I was big enough to carry a bi-fold wallet I got one like my dad’s, so I’ve never experienced adult life with anything different, and thus didn’t realize that there are actually practical reasons for getting a wallet like the one my dad always carried (my dad being practical to a fault, I should have known). It turns out that this new wallet of mine is littered with problems. First, since it’s made of soft black leather instead of smooth marbled brown, it doesn’t slide in and out of my back pocket very easily. I’ve almost left it behind at various places simply because putting it back into my pocket is such an ordeal that I often don’t bother to do it right away and thus forget that it’s not there. Second, all of my credit cards have to go in vertically rather than horizontally, so they’re almost completely covered up and I can hardly tell them apart. Finally, and this is absolutely ridiculous – this smaller size of bi-fold is almost the exact width of U.S. currency – making it almost impossible to get cash in and out of it. This completely defeats the purpose of a wallet! This might rival the circular mouse of late 90s Mac infamy as the single biggest design flaw in a product ever.
But then there is the far larger problem. Far worse than the struggle to get this stupid new wallet out of my pocket is the unpleasant thought that when that struggle is over and I finally do pull it out, it doesn’t look or feel like MY wallet. Sure, the color matches more of my clothes, and the softer leather is nice to the touch, but it just doesn’t have that heft and substance to it that I’m used to. And it’s true that the smaller size makes it take up less space in my pocket, but whenever I sit down I can feel that it just doesn’t lay right between me and my seat.
And, in the end, it simply doesn’t line up with the childhood memories that I have of my dad pulling out his beat up, brown, leather wallet whenever we’d get to the checkout at the grocery store, or toy store, or movie theater. My dad would never be able to palm this smaller bi-fold the way he would when he’d move his wallet into his back pocket. And as time passed and the wallet got more and more worn, the black leather wouldn’t show the scuffing around the edges that always told me that my dad’s wallet had been around for a while – maybe even longer than I had.
Put even more simply, this wallet isn’t the wallet that I want.
Maybe there was more to it than simply thinking my dad’s wallet looked kind of cool, maybe it reminded me that there were parts of my dad that I SHOULD aspire to turn into one day. Maybe it wasn’t just a sign of manhood because it was big – maybe it reminded me that my father was a provider; someone who could buy groceries and toys; someone who could take me to the movies. And maybe that plastic insert that held all of the pictures of my brother and me, a picture marking every year of our young lives, reminded me just how much my dad, a man who never expressed himself very well, really loved us.
So, today, I’m headed back to JC Penny. If I have to wait in line forever to get it, so be it – maybe I should have stood in that line the first time and used the time to think a little bit.
I just have to remember to pee before I go.
While getting a new wallet might seem like a relatively simple task, this has turned into quite the quest for two key reasons. The first is that I’m incredibly particular when it comes to my wallet. Some might say that I’m incredibly particular with everything I buy, but it’s even worse when it comes to my wallet. When I was a kid I always thought my dad’s wallet was really cool. He always had a slightly larger than normal bi-fold wallet made out of smooth, marbled brown leather. I remember the way it had a slight curve to it from sitting in his back pocket for so long and how the picture insert in the middle would flop around whenever he opened it to reveal two rows of credit and membership cards arranged in succession like a choir. And there was always the clear window that showed the driver’s license of whichever state we were living in at the time right next to the military ID that never changed. Most of all, I was always amazed at how big it looked. Being a child, I always had a tri-fold wallet myself because it was the only kind that would fit in my childhood sized pockets. I fear the consequences of delving too deeply into it, but somehow, in the depths of my twisted subconscious, this led to my associating having a big, brown, leather, bi-fold wallet with being a man, and anything that deviates from that formula being for little boys. Why I choose this one trait of my dad’s to try to emulate while going out of my way to try NOT to become my father in so many other respects is a question I’ll leave to any pop-psychologists out there, but it’s true – without the right kind of wallet, I feel like less of a man.
The second reason my search for a new wallet has become such an epic quest has to do with the recent site of all of my life’s seeming cross roads: the Galleria Mall (see blog of March 26). Surely somewhere in the Galleria I could find the perfect wallet. So I started browsing.
Now, I know things in the Galleria can be pricey, so it’s not that I had some delusion that I was going to be able to pick up a wallet for $5 or anything, but I quickly realized that most of the stores in there were simply out of my price range. I mean, if I spend $395 on a wallet then I won’t have any money to put in it, thus making it kind of pointless. Not to mention I just have a hard time paying more than $50 for something that’s going to spend most of it’s days soaking up my ass sweat (not that my ass really sweats that much).
Eventually I found my way into Brookstone figuring it would probably be cheaper and, lo and behold, I found exactly what I was looking for for about $35. Perfect! The only weird thing was that in the place where you put your driver’s license, this wallet had a kind of mesh rather than a clear piece of plastic. That didn’t seem like a big deal, so I headed to the cash register ready to pay for my purchase, ne masculinity. But then it occurred to me that the mesh would probably make it pretty hard to read the ID and that I’d better try it before I spent any money. Sure enough, the mesh only made it visible enough to be able to tell that it was an ID, but made it impossible to actually read anything on the ID or to even see the picture well enough to know it was my ID. WTF! Was the clear plastic THAT much more expensive to manufacture? The crazy thing is that the description of the wallet on the box actually BRAGGED about the mesh “feature.” Were these things designed by Mac? Did I almost stumble into an iWallet (although it wasn’t that soul sucking white color – fucking Macs)? Regardless, I put it back and headed back into the mall to continue my search for my manhood.
After another hour of frustration I decided that if one store could rescue this ill-fated quest to satisfy my bizarre mess of Freudian contradictions through the purchasing of a piece of leather folded in half it would be the crown jewel of all Galleria stores: Banana Republic! After all, the BR Luxe card was designed to look like the exact same pattern of leather as my dad’s old wallets, which had to be a good sign – an omen, even. And on top of that, what better way to carry my beautiful Banana Republic credit card than in an equally beautiful Banana Republic wallet? The whole walk there I was chastising myself for not just going to The Republic from the very beginning.
When I got there, however, I could immediately tell that all was not well with the Banana. Instead of the usual nondescript salesperson who usually greets me as I enter my shopping haven, I was met by this weird looking guy with a buzzcut who had done waaaayyyyy too many bench presses and not enough back exercises, so he had that overly-built, hunched over look to him. On top of that, he spoke as though he was a drill sergeant screaming orders as he hurried over to me and declaimed “All pants – 30% off! We also have new shirts – over there!” I had to fight back the urge to shout “Sir, yes, sir!” and salute him. Instead, I just said thanks and started browsing a bit (sure, I was there for a wallet, but I was in The Republic – might as well look around). In the meantime, this crazy salesperson (we’ll call him Benchpress McGee from now on) stalked around the store belting out the phrase “Do you need help!” to anyone who didn’t seem to be totally focused on a definite shopping task.
I headed over to the sale rack and there were these two guys next to me looking through the rack as well. I overheard one of the guys, who was looking at a dress shirt, say “I’m not sure what my neck size is.” Like a puma pouncing on prey at the first sign of weakness, Benchpress popped seemingly out of nowhere and screamed “You have a question!”
The guy looked kind of startled as he said “No, I just wasn’t sure of the size.”
With an intensity that shook me to my very soul, Benchy barked “You want me to measure you!”
I can only imagine the horrific image that must have been flashing through this guy’s mind of Benchy with a tape measure and a crazed look in his eye. After a few moments of panicked shock, he managed to stutter out “N, no thanks, I th, think I can figure it out.”
Afraid that I’d be next on Benchy’s Retail Bootcamp roster I headed to the other side of the store to look at dress clothes for work. After looking around a while longer, I was done browsing and ready to regain focus on my real reason for being there: wallets. I looked around for just a moment, wondering where the wallets would be. Alas, that was the window of opportunity that Benchy’d been waiting for – he was on me in an instant: “What do you need!” I asked if they had any wallets, but he didn’t know. Not to fear, he headed to the check out register as though he’d just been given a mission to rush into a war zone and rescue fallen members of his platoon. He returned shortly thereafter to inform me that the Banana doesn’t carry wallets!
So, after paying for my two new shirts and a pair of pants (it’s the Banana after all) I left the store now burdened with two very frightening and harsh realities – I would be haunted by nightmares of Benchy and his Tape-measure of Terror for weeks to come and, worst of all, words I never thought I would ever have to utter: The Republic failed me! If I can’t go to The Republic in my times of need, where am I supposed to go? I’m not sure I want to live in a world where the greatest clothing store in the world doesn’t carry wallets. In light of this distressing turn of events, I had no choice but to resort to drastic measures – so I went to (shudder at the thought) Macy’s.
What was really bizarre was that in such a huge store I couldn’t find a single salesperson to tell me where the wallets were. Say what I might about Benchpress McGee, at least he did, in the end, offer help – frighteningly intense help, but help nonetheless. After about twenty minutes of searching around this maze of a store (including having to push past several people who apparently thought that just because it was broken it was okay to go up the down escalator with their hands so full of shopping bags that it was impossible for me to get by) I finally found the men’s accessories department and zeroed in on the wallets. Unfortunately, right as I approached them I felt an undeniable urge to pee. As particular as I am about my wallet, I knew that browsing through them was not going to be a short process, so I was going to have to go to the bathroom before I could fully focus on the task at hand. I looked all over the men’s department but couldn’t find a bathroom anywhere (this is always a huge problem anywhere in the Galleria – I once left the mall and just went in an alley for this very reason).
Finally, I found a salesperson and asked where the men’s room was. She told me that it was up stairs next to the women’s petite! Of course - why wasn't that the first place I looked? So after another fifteen minutes of figuring out where the hell the women’s petite section was, I finally found the men’s room. What was startling was that it wasn’t as though this is where all of the restrooms were – just the men’s room! I don’t know where the women’s restroom was, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s probably somewhere around the men’s underwear section.
What was even more startling, though, was that the custodian was cleaning the men’s room and had it roped off so no one could use it! By now I was about ready to explode and getting really frustrated with this ridiculous store. “Is it possible for me to use the bathroom?” I called into the bathroom hoping that I’d hear some guy’s voice say sure, just be careful of the wet floor. Instead, I heard a female voice yell back with clear agitation, “Not while I’m in here!” I asked how long she’d be, and she said it’d be a while. Great.
For a fleeting moment the persistent lack of salespeople anywhere in the store tempted me to just find a secluded corner in the perfume section and just go, but then I reminded myself that this wallet was, after all, all about being a man, and men can hold it, dammit! So I headed back to the wallets and started browsing.
After looking at every wallet they had, I couldn’t find anything exactly right, but by now in addition to having to pee, the mall was getting ready to close, and I really needed to just get a fucking wallet. Eventually I found one for half price ($15) that was a leather bi-fold, but it was black instead of brown, and not quite as big as I like them to be. But oh well, maybe it would be healthy to slowly disassociate my masculinity from the size and color of my wallet – plus this might help in my lifelong quest to not turn into my father. So I settled.
But this was only the first step. Now that I’d found a wallet, I had to pay for it. After searching the entire bottom floor, I was convinced that Macy’s doesn’t actually hire salespeople. I found four different cash registers but not a single employee manning a single one of them. Finally, in the juniors section I found a woman who was ringing up this couple who had a huge pile of clothes. Still needing to pee so badly I could hardly stand it (why is it that kids who need to pee can get away with just holding their crotches to pinch it off, and adults can’t?) I thought about trying to find someone else to ring me up, but the prospects didn’t look good, so I just decided to wait. After finally ringing up, folding, and bagging all of this couple’s clothes, the cashier asked if they’d like to open a Macy’s credit card account to save 10%. Turns out, they wanted to do just that. To top it all off, the man (who was getting the card) didn’t speak a word of English, so his girlfriend had to translate every step of the application process for him. This was going to take a while, so I bailed.
I headed back up to the women’s section and, once again, began a search for a salesperson. In the meantime, I heard several announcements on the intercom informing me that the store was closing soon so could I please take my purchases to the register. That’s what I’d been trying to do for the past fifteen minutes. And I had to pee! At this point I was thinking “To hell with the deserted corner of the perfume department, I’m just going to drop trou and piss all over the next unmanned cash register I find!” Finally, I saw someone behind one of the jewelry counters and asked if he could ring me up. He asked me what it was and I told him it was a wallet. He immediately pulled his hands away as though I had coated the wallet box in the bubonic plague before he told me I’d have to take it back to the men’s department.
I refused to believe that this was true, so when I saw a woman at one of the regular cash registers I raced over to her and asked if I could check out. She said yes and proceeded to try to ring up the wallet. It came up on her screen as $0. She said apparently it would only ring up in the men’s department, so I’d have to go down there. I told her that I’d tried but there was no one there to do it. She rolled her eyes and said, “well I can’t sell you something that rings up for $0” and then walked away! Forget about the cash register, I was about ready to just pee all over her! I was thinking about leaving and forgetting about the wallet, but I had come so far already.
So, I headed back down to the men’s department. On the way there I heard yet another announcement about the store closing and the need for customers to bring their final purchases to the registers. I began to wonder if this was actually part of some big joke – that as soon as they make these announcements they all immediately hide; that underneath each cash register station there was an employing giggling with childish glee at the prank they were all collectively pulling. Or maybe customer service at Macy’s just sucks. Either way, I was beyond frustrated.
Back in the men’s department I FINALLY found a guy reorganizing the shoes who could ring me up but, lo and behold, the wallet still rang up for $0. Unlike the woman upstairs, however, he eventually figured out how to ring it up and it actually was half off of the already reduced price and only cost $7.50. I’m not sure if the extra $7.50 I saved was worth the permanent damage I had probably done to my bladder, but at this point I was willing to take any small victory. So, finally, after overcoming a problem with the credit card reader that required me to try three different cards before I was able to make this slightly inadequate wallet my own, my quest seemed over.
After the ordeal I’d just faced I needed a drink and a bathroom, so I headed to the restaurant in the Galleria where my roommate works since I knew they’d be able to provide me with both. Usually I don’t use the bathroom there because they have one of those guys who turns on the water for you in exchange for tips, which I hate both because it makes me uncomfortable to have someone help me use the restroom (I’m not three and this guy isn’t my mom) and because I bristle (yes bristle) at the prospect of having to pay to use the bathroom (I mean, I could just not tip him, but this guy works in a bathroom for god’s sake, I wouldn’t feel right stiffing him). But this time, I had to go so badly that I was willing to endure the awkwardness, and so glad to finally get relief that I almost felt like tipping the poor guy $20.
But there is ultimately more to the story. The moment I was big enough to carry a bi-fold wallet I got one like my dad’s, so I’ve never experienced adult life with anything different, and thus didn’t realize that there are actually practical reasons for getting a wallet like the one my dad always carried (my dad being practical to a fault, I should have known). It turns out that this new wallet of mine is littered with problems. First, since it’s made of soft black leather instead of smooth marbled brown, it doesn’t slide in and out of my back pocket very easily. I’ve almost left it behind at various places simply because putting it back into my pocket is such an ordeal that I often don’t bother to do it right away and thus forget that it’s not there. Second, all of my credit cards have to go in vertically rather than horizontally, so they’re almost completely covered up and I can hardly tell them apart. Finally, and this is absolutely ridiculous – this smaller size of bi-fold is almost the exact width of U.S. currency – making it almost impossible to get cash in and out of it. This completely defeats the purpose of a wallet! This might rival the circular mouse of late 90s Mac infamy as the single biggest design flaw in a product ever.
But then there is the far larger problem. Far worse than the struggle to get this stupid new wallet out of my pocket is the unpleasant thought that when that struggle is over and I finally do pull it out, it doesn’t look or feel like MY wallet. Sure, the color matches more of my clothes, and the softer leather is nice to the touch, but it just doesn’t have that heft and substance to it that I’m used to. And it’s true that the smaller size makes it take up less space in my pocket, but whenever I sit down I can feel that it just doesn’t lay right between me and my seat.
And, in the end, it simply doesn’t line up with the childhood memories that I have of my dad pulling out his beat up, brown, leather wallet whenever we’d get to the checkout at the grocery store, or toy store, or movie theater. My dad would never be able to palm this smaller bi-fold the way he would when he’d move his wallet into his back pocket. And as time passed and the wallet got more and more worn, the black leather wouldn’t show the scuffing around the edges that always told me that my dad’s wallet had been around for a while – maybe even longer than I had.
Put even more simply, this wallet isn’t the wallet that I want.
Maybe there was more to it than simply thinking my dad’s wallet looked kind of cool, maybe it reminded me that there were parts of my dad that I SHOULD aspire to turn into one day. Maybe it wasn’t just a sign of manhood because it was big – maybe it reminded me that my father was a provider; someone who could buy groceries and toys; someone who could take me to the movies. And maybe that plastic insert that held all of the pictures of my brother and me, a picture marking every year of our young lives, reminded me just how much my dad, a man who never expressed himself very well, really loved us.
So, today, I’m headed back to JC Penny. If I have to wait in line forever to get it, so be it – maybe I should have stood in that line the first time and used the time to think a little bit.
I just have to remember to pee before I go.