What's in your wallet?

This isn’t a question to protect you from marauding hordes creating mayhem in your life.  Its a question of the serious kind.

I lost my purse today, sorry old habits die hard, I mean wallet. Argh.  Well,  I noticed it was missing today.  I phoned Adorable, maybe I left it at home.  Apparently not.  Last  time I saw it was at the grocery store, yesterday.  Maybe they have it?  Nope, not there either.  Time to make a list of what was in it:

Credit cards:  Check.

Driver’s license: Check.

Debit card: Check.

Medical insurance cards: Check.

Car insurance card: Check.

Photos of loved ones: Check.

What else?  Must be more, it was a big fat wallet, stuffed with…what?  My mind was blank.  Does everyone carry much more than they need, like me?

Did I lose it or did someone help themselves to it…I had no clue.

Spent time in my lovely Bank, being told I couldn’t get replacement cards because I had no government issued ID.  Er, no…it was in my wallet.  I eventually asked if my passport would suffice.  Apparently it would.  Went home, got passport, finally got temporary cards.

Next stop DMV where they wanted to know if I’d filed a police report.  No, well a new license will cost $31.  Ok, ok.   I didn’t want to take the risk of driving without one just in case I bumped into – literally or not – a police officer who was less than understanding.  I was just about to receive the new license in my hot little hand when…bang…computers went down.  It only took another hour and then I scurried out of there, before anything else could go awry.  I’d had enough challenges for one day thank you very much.

Phone calls to credit card companies, and variety of insurance companies followed.

Maybe I should file a police report, considering identity theft is a real possibility these days. A simply smashing police officer took down all the details.  He was very polite and understanding, but it was embarrassing to confess I didn’t remember the full contents of the missing wallet.

Helpful hints from charming police officer:  keep a list of everything in your wallet: don’t carry around more than you need, be it cash or cards, or personal items you really, really don’t want to lose:  leave your social security card at home and same for receipts. And finally don’t keep your check book in your wallet.

Helpful hint from me: Do carry a photo of a baby.  Don’t have any babies…then beg or borrow pics from friends or family.  Failing that get one from the internet, just make sure you have one.  Why?  Because a recent Scottish study showed that 88% of wallets with baby photos were returned.  Now they tell me!