Key to the Wallet

Confucious say: Man who loses key to girlfriend's apartment get no new key.

 

Rodney Dangerfield say: I was so ugly my father carried around a picture of the kid that came with the wallet.
 

According to Wikipedia, which is almost as accurate as a dollar store dart gun, wooden keys were in use in Egypt some 4000 years ago. The article didn't fully explan how earlier Egyptians got into their cars, although I suspect they gained entry through the use of an early form of the Egyptian Automobile Association.
 

The word “key” comes from Old English (AD 450 to 1150, although I do know some old Englishmen who were born somewhat later.) It was spelled “caeg” and was impossible to pronounce without coughing up a furball.
 

Wallets, on the other hand, are much, much older. Using a form of research popularized by the tobacco industry, known as “imaginative fictionalization”, it has been postulated that wallets were originally invented by noted Neanderthal scientist and philosopher, Oot Groont, in the year, 500,000 BC (Before Cupcake). The brilliant cave enthusiast had devised a sack out of a piece of mastadon skin to carry the fire making tools and arrowheads he had just manufactured in his new quarry. It also carried change for the parking meter.
 

The word, “wallet”, is also much older than the “key” word. According to sources (that rhyme with “icky-pedia”) the word was coined in the first century, AD. They know this because they asked my brother Bob who was there at the time.
 

Like the fine folks back then, modern man (and ladies) love our keys and wallets. They come with us everywhere. They are like expensive jewellrey we refuse to leave at home because we can't. We NEED our keys and wallets with us at every moment. They are more precious than our children... almost.... although WAY less fun to replace. And expensive, too!
 

Consider, if you will, the loss of a wallet. I misplaced mine recently and immediately began to mentally enumerate all the pieces of paper and plastic I hold so near and dear. It wasn't just the credit cards and debit cards and health cards and auto cards and grocery store member cards and government cards and “air mile” cards, and a submarine shop card that only needed three more visits to get a free sandwich but a myriad collection of little bits of life. They sit largely unused, unnoticed but still treasured. It is the scrap of paper with the phone number of that old buddy I ran into at the mall a few months ago. It is a business card from a dart shop where the scrawled name upon it had promised to give me a great deal on a set of tungsten hammerheads. It is all those flakes of day to day that accumulate and we are so loathe to throw them out, let alone lose them.
 

And yes, I was choked about the cash inside the wallet, too. I had a lot of money on me. I feared that it was twenty bucks I'll never see again, although I rationalized it would have been well worth it to get the rest of the wallet back intact. To replace all those little bits of plastic and paper would have been a pain since you need ID to get ID. Where does one start nowadays? Before, you just went to a registation office and told them how you'd lost your drivers license and they'd just give you a new one. Not so now. They are so afraid of identity theft, you have to prove upside and sideways who you are and need a notarized affadavit from Ed Stelmach himself just to get a replacement.
 

Losing a set of keys wasn't so bad at one time, either. You simply swiped your wife's spare set and went to the local hardware store to get a replacement. If it cost more than a buck and a half, you felt ripped off. Nowadays, however, with computer chips imbedded in the plastic grip of the key to our precious vehicles, to replace a lost key is more than the price of a muffler. You can get a brand new windshield cheaper than an ignition key. In fact, it is worth more than my bi-weekly car payment!
 

Of course not all keys are as important to us as our car keys. There is the collection of keys we have that hang on the key ring holder in the porch. It holds about three dozen keys of various descriptions that we have managed to accumulate over the years and have no idea what they open. We are afraid to throw them out, however, because sure as Christmas ads follow Halloween, we would need one of those keys the day after we tossed them.
 

As far as my errant wallet goes, I was lucky.  This time.
 

I had inadvertantly put the wallet on my son's headboard when I was hanging up my pants after work. Since he's gone to live in the dorm, Cupcake has been slowly moving all my clothes into his closet. All the while it was misplaced, however, I developed a new admiration for my old wallet.
 

 could say although I'd lost my wallet, I'd gained a new perspective. Frankly, I'd rather just have the wallet, thanks!