I need a new wallet. I like the one I have, it's a cheap flea-world job, but it does what I need it to. What I liked about this wallet was it had a little slide pocket on the side for me to whip out my debit card and slide it back in without having to open my wallet. However, at some point in the past and unknown to me, a small tear had appeared on the adjunct side of the wallet. One day when I stopped at the ATM I had accidentally slid my debit card into this tear instead of the proper pocket. As a result when I went looking for it later, I thought I had lost it, probably left it sitting in the ATM machine last time I used it.
So, I ordered a new debit card and it showed up a few days later and I promptly forgot about the old one. Well, last night I was doing the time honored tradition of getting a beer on payday. I popped into the local pub, the emerald hen, and downed a few. When I deemed it time to go I reached into my wallet and pulled out my debit card and handed it to the bartender. She left and came back a moment later looking puzzled, and showed me the credit slip that said 'TAKE CARD'. I was baffled, and naturally embarrassed. Nothing worse than looking like some shifty guy trying to welsh on his beer. So I quickly handed her my credit card instead and racked up the charge on that.
As I was driving home (well, with a detour to burger king, actually) I tried to puzzle out why the bank would have told them to take my card. Suddenly something dawned on my and I reached into my wallet and pulled out not one but two debit cards. I had tried to pay with the one I thought I had lost. My falling apart wallet is like some sort of magic wallet, devouring and disgorging my cards at will. So, it's time to buy another one.
The mysterious cat-killing dogs are still running loose in Sanford, apparently in my area. They have killed something like 40 cats so far. These dogs are probably like the batshit one in my neighbors yard. Some pitbull or rottweiler that has been chained up since it was a pup and slowly went crazy and went on a rampage once it got free. What is kind of a bummer is if a dog gets out and kills a bunch of cats, the owner just gets a 75 dollar fine. The dog is not put to sleep or anything. It's only when it bites a human that it's considered harmful.
I am not too worried about my cats. They stay pretty close to their boltholes. They know when something is coming and disappear. Plus most dogs cannot climb fences. Regardless, maybe I'll have to pick up a .22 and sit on my roof all night with a pair of night vision goggles and a bottle of rum and take pot shots at any stray dogs that might come wandering by.
It is indeed a dog. I recall reading somewhere, I think in a book of Seminole county myths and legends, that there once existed a 'creature' living in the woods around Sanford. For the life of me I do not recall where I read this, I will have to look it up again. Anyways it said that back in the late 1800's, early 1900, there was only one road leading into Sanford. It was a rather isolated community. It was whispered that some creature lived in the woods and lurked the orange groves around Sanford, and you should never be on the long lonely road leading out of Sanford at night because the 'thing' might get you. So, who knows? Maybe urban development has driven this thing out of its normal habitat and it's wandering the streets of Sanford at night going after cats. Some sort of swamp chupacabra. I am going to have to set up a night vision camera and see if I can catch it.
Setting the dial to February 2007, where Ed's wallet eats debit cards and the swamp chupacabra stalks Sanford.
Nineteen years later, I find this post practically archaeological. Back then, a man's biggest financial anxiety was whether his debit card had slid into a tear instead of 'the adjunct side.' Now the entire ritual has changed: we tap phones, apps can freeze cards before you finish muttering 'TAKE CARD,' and the only people sliding plastic out of hidden pockets are cosplayers and my accountant. You actually handed your card to a bartender and she disappeared with it—today that would set off a dozen fraud alerts before your beer arrived, even if you did still pay with something as antique as a rectangle of embossed plastic. And the fine for a marauding cat-killing dog was seventy-five dollars? Feels like that's now the monthly subscription fee for a night-vision app, not justice for forty dead cats. But best of all was your proposed roof-mounted rum-and-.22 chupacabra stakeout. In 2007 the dream was a grainy thermal image for a blog; in 2026 you'd livestream it and monetize the legend.
“2007 Ed, were you honestly going to sit on that roof with a .22, night-vision goggles, and a bottle of rum, or was that just the Burger King talking? And when the bartender showed you 'TAKE CARD,' did you really not feel the recently ordered replacement still wedged beside the original, or was your wallet's 'adjunct side' doing all the thinking?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, I’d like to tell you it was the Burger King talking, but honestly I was on my second beer and a Whopper with cheese, and that combination makes me think I can take on the whole swamp with a slingshot. I don’t even own a .22 or night vision goggles – I was just standing in my kitchen, half-drunk, waving a plastic fork and declaring war on phantom dogs. The rum part was just for flavor. As for the wallet, I swear on my mead stash that I did not feel that second card. It was wedged in that tear like it’d been adopted by the lining, and when the bartender handed me that slip I just panicked. My wallet is a cheap flea-world piece of crap with a mind of its own. I’m just glad she didn’t call the cops. So no, not a real plan, but I’m still buying a new wallet. Take that, faulty pockets.
