WHERE IS MY WALLET?

If you could look inside the typical man's brain it would read: "Girls, sports, food; girls, sports, food; girls, sports, food. Wait!!.. where's my wallet.. whew!! I got it!... girls, sports, food; girls, sports, food..."

You could do the deepest, most complex psychological studies concerning personality types and I would simply, always, fall into the category that described "the man who couldn't keep track of his wallet." Forget mesomorph, try misplace-omorph. Yet, there seems to be a bond between wallet and man that defies description. Maybe it's just an extension of my true self. After all, my wallet was with me at my junior prom, and when the doctor set my hand after I broke it playing football. It has been the first thing I put my hand on, on many occasions while watching that State Trooper grow larger in my rear-view mirror. It's been thick and thin through thick and thin.

Paradoxically, I almost daily misplace my wallet. Maybe there are other men out there like me. Maybe we can band together, start a support group. This might help our spouses understand our problem: "Wallet Deficit Syndrome". But the deeper question is, "why do I so often misplace it?" Is it a natural fear of the responsibility that wallets represent? Do I have an inner person who wants to shed the wallet's macho symbolism and get in touch with a more feminine side? Who knows why such an integral part of my manhood is so easily taken for granted and lost?

Here is a typical day in the life of my vanished wallet.

8:20am I finish breakfast and make a quick scan of the house.
2:26pm I listen to the messages off phone machine. (23 second gap of silence is my mother refusing to leave a
message)
5:20 Dinner with wife and kids.
5:45 I innocently say for the first time; "Did you see my wallet?"
5:46 My wife ignores me
6:51 After searching the entire house quietly again, I say, "did you see my wallet?"
7:21 After discovering through a series of phone calls that Agent Scully is a fictitious character, I set out to solve the crime of who stole my wallet myself.
8:14 Theorize that my wallet has been stolen by the same person who was on the grassy knoll in Dallas, who gave the sleeping pills to Marilyn and who secretly controls the minds of our youth through "Back Street Boys."
9:01 Try to take my mind off my lost wallet by complaining again how awful Media One is, in Peachtree City.
10:58 Try to go to sleep.
12:41 Think of John Tesh, fall asleep
2:13 Wake up to realization that I have inadvertently placed my wallet on top of my closet shelf as I was changing clothes.
2:14 Fall back asleep.
7:40 Wake up to get ready for work... can't remember location of wallet that I had recalled at 2:13 from the night before.

So, where's my wallet? It must be around here somewhere. I just can't seem to find it. I should forget about this whole mess and just go to the Post Office. I would that is, if I could just finds my keys.

Billy Murphy -- 8/27/99