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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

Finders, keepers. Losers, weepers.

I don’t believe that idiom. I’ve found lost wallets, purses, a laptop computer, a tablet, cellphones, a camera, a spotting scope, car keys, dogs, used bubble gum and a class ring. I turned them all over to the proper authorities and trust they were reunited with their owners. I was telling stories in Illinois when I found a thick wallet hiding behind the door of my room. It was so hefty that if the owner had flown there, his wallet would have gone as checked luggage. It was surprising the wallet didn’t have wheels and a handle. If a bulky wallet in a back pocket can cause a spinal imbalance leading to back pain, the guy was likely in traction. When I contacted the owner in North Carolina, he was flabbergasted. He wanted his wallet and cards back but asked if I’d donate the money to charity. I did just that. I sent his wallet back with a tax-deductible receipt for his $601 donation to a fine charity.

That was a nice wallet. I didn’t covet the wallet, but it was a dandy. Earlier, I’d been in an airport, working on my yawning, when I spotted someone looking at a phone. It took some intestinal fortitude to resist the urge to look at my cellphone. When another looks at his wallet, I have no desire to look at mine, but I might if it were as handsome as that previously lost wallet.

Last year, two fishermen were on Lake Inferior when one dropped his wallet into the water. They watched a carp grab the wallet. Another carp stole it away but hadn’t gone far before a third carp seized it. The other angler remarked, “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen carp-to-carp walleting.”

I got a new wallet recently. I get one every 20 years. The old one had become battered and tattered. This might have been due to climate change, loss of habitat, normal wear and tear, or damage done by the moths that had taken up residence in it. I cleaned the old one out and transferred the things worth keeping. It was as I’d figured; there wasn’t much money. There were more faded receipts than cash, but the new wallet became home for credit cards, driver’s license, photos and moths.

My new wallet is brown in color. It’s not just brown; it’s a kind of brown with a name you’d find on paint in a Sherwin-Williams store. My wallet isn’t made from Naugahyde.

That’s good. I don’t see many naugas around here anymore. Vole fur would have been lovely, but it was unavailable.

Kings and billionaires employ bodybuilders as wallet bearers or pushers of wheelbarrows overflowing with moola. The family legend is that my great-grandfather tied his wallet lengthwise and crosswise with shoelaces. That kept the contents secure and gave him a chance to have second thoughts. While he untied the shoelaces to get to his spending money, he had time to determine whether he needed what he was about to buy. He claimed those shoelaces had saved him oodles of money. Rubber bands could do that job, but they might snap for no reason.

My wife has several purses. She doesn’t carry them all at once. Purses need to be switched out. Purses tire easily and need to be rested. A purse is a place to keep the necessities that migrate to its bottom — cellphone, car keys and reward cards.

Because I was too often guilty of saying, “Honey, could I put the car keys in your purse? There’s no room for them in my wallet,” I have a man’s purse. It’s a ragged messenger bag I sling over my shoulder. My wife put something of hers in it. It’s an anvil.

I was given a wallet as a high school graduation gift. I wanted something nice to keep my lack of money in. My mother had placed a clipping in that wallet when I went off to college. It was probably snipped from Capper’s Weekly. It was a quote from Washington Irving, “A mother’s love endures through all.”

That bit of paper was a constant reminder that something in my wallet was worth far more than money.

Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday.