I NEVER KNEW ANOTHER wallet before my last one. A birthday gift from my grandmother when I turned 13, it came to me generic and plain, dark brown leather without the slightest wrinkled expression. I didn’t have much disposable income at the time, but every 13-year old man needs a wallet.
It was my photo album for tiny school pictures traded on playgrounds, the place for gift cards sent from invisible relatives (often for stores/restaurants not in my town), a scrapbook of movie ticket stubs from the first fantastically awkward dates. I’d seen my father’s wallet, black, bulging, brick-like, and hoped I’d get there some day.