What Have You Got In Your Wallet?

Still Broke

I was out to lunch with my son-in-law today. At one point he wanted another can of soda and asked if I had any money on me since he didn't feel right about charging a can of soda on his credit card.

And no, I didn't have any cash on me.

I never was one to carry much cash around. When I was working, sometimes I had a few dollars on me just because somebody or other was always selling candy bars or raffle tickets for their church or their kids' softball team, and I never knew when somebody was going to order pizza, a piece of which I would have to have in order not to spend the rest of the day drooling on my work station. I almost never had more than five bucks on me.

There was always somebody I worked with however that would carry wads of money on them. It was Wally at the last place I worked. Wally's not his real name, but I don't want to run the risk of using his real name and having some nutcase connect the dots back to Wally and steal his money. Wally always carried lots of money around. It was not unusual for Wally to have at least a thousand dollars in cash in his pocket. He asked me one night to stop by the lunch truck to get him a sandwich and handed me a $100 bill -- it was the smallest he had.

I haven't had any money in my pockets since I retired. Until today, there hasn't been a reason to have any, and I think that's cool. Of course I am hoping that no one is waiting for me to spend us our of the recession. It could be a long wait.