Monkey Face

A few months ago I wrote about my wallet. My old worn out black leather wallet with ripped coin purse and a faded radio sticker with the call name Dave that was given to me by the folks at KW Hab. I loved that wallet. Joe hated that wallet. For Christmas several years running I got an assortment of new wallets. I never used them, didn't want them, resented getting them. He didn't understand. Said they were the same as my old wallet, only new. I said they weren't the same as my wallet because they were new.

When I wrote about this last time I pointed out that my wallet was 'mine'. Absolutely and completely mine. Not shared. Not part of 'us'. Completely mine. And I liked it just as it was. I wanted to make the point, then, that people have attachments - silly or not - to the oddest things. That its wrong to take away these things, to talk people into giving them up, to use disapproval as punishment for not seeing the world in the prescribed way.

I was surprised when many people posted about how I could keep my wallet and get a new one at the same time. Put your old wallet in a special place was one suggestion. It didn't make sense to me, the special place I kept my wallet was in my pocket. Cut the wallet up and make a key chain with the leather and Dave sticker ... EEEEEEEEK! Get away from my wallet you butcher. I wanted to scream at the screen: "But it's my wallet, why do you care about my wallet, why do you all want me to give up my wallet!"

Admittedly, I knew you were all right.

But your being right doesn't subsume my right to be wrong.

So it will suprise you to learn that whilst in Owen Sound we were wandering around Wallmart and I spotted a very cool black cloth wallet with an awesome monkey face embroidered on it. I pushed myself over to examine it. Perfect. I couldn't understand why it was marked as a 'girl's wallet' but who cares, I'm daring, self assured in both my manliness and maturity. I plopped it into the cart. Joe picked it up and asked, totally confused, "Who are you buying this for?"

"Me," says I.

"But you've got a hundred new wallets at home."

"I don't like them, I like this one."

"It has a monkey face on it."

"Yes."

"It's a girl's wallet."

"So you say."

His face looked stern, "Well then I'm going to take the wallet I gave you last year, I need a new wallet and I might as well use that one."

"Be my guest."

We strolled away and I smiled at the idea of my new black fabric wallet with the cool monkey face on it.

On the way out I said to Joe, "Remember that conversation we had about choices for people with disabilities in the car." (We really do have the best conversations some times about disability issues and themes.)

"Yes," he said, warily.

"You know what my new wallet is?"

"What?"

"Uncoerced selection. And that is why I like it, that's why I bought it and that is why I'll use it."

I knew I had to give up my old wallet one of these days. Every time I was prompted to get a new one, nagged to replace the old one, my heels dug in a little further. I became defiant. About a silly wallet because I wanted to do it in my own time, in my own way and I wanted to pick out the next one myself. You may call this childish, I call this freedom.