One sign of our changing culture: my last wallet

Retirement is a time when you are asked to make all kinds of choices about your uncertain future. For the headline issues — Social Security, 401(k)distributions, Medicare, and prescription drug plans — there is an avalanche of available information (and misinformation).

But you only truly stare into the dark abyss of your own mortality when faced with heretofore mundane decisions. And there’s not a lot of help. As you ease (slide?) into retirement mode you inevitably take stock of your stuff. Will I need more of this? Less of that? Will I need any of it? I was reminded of this recently when I read that Barneys New York had gone into corporate bankruptcy. Fortunately, not before I bought my last wallet. 

Confronted with a leather wallet bursting at the seams, no longer capable of reliably securing my daily financial life was a quotidian call to action. 

First, let’s get this out of the way: Who carries a wallet? Or cash, for that matter? I do. Yes, I’ve seen the “convenient” pouch on the back of an iPhone. As a budding curmudgeon, Je Refuse.

Trying to find a place that sells something that “no one carries anymore” is not easy. Sure, there’s that small little accessory that holds three credit cards, your license and a $20 bill, but I mean a real wallet. More specifically, a trifold, which drew bemused responses from the few merchants who would even acknowledge that men with wallets once roamed the earth.

“Trifold?!” “Sorry, can’t help you.” “You know there’s this thing you can put on the back of an iPhone.” 

“Yes, I know.” 

Barneys New York to the rescue. “We have trifolds, but only a few.” As a belt and suspenders type guy, my course of action was clear: I bought two. 

Whew, a sense of relief as I now carry my second to last wallet with my spare resting comfortably in the sock drawer. 

My next challenge awaits as I contemplate a closet full of business suits.

“Nobody . . .”

I know.

M.A. Duca is a resident of Twin Lakes narrowly focused on everyday life.