"...What has it got in its pocketses? Oh we guess, we guess, my precious. He's found it, yes he must have. My birthday-present."
This month's Waning Poetic topic is "Inventory: Open your purse, your wallet, or your desk drawer. What's in it? Why is it there?"
I have a purse, but I just bought a new one, so all the amusing bits of detritus have been cleaned out. I did, however, merely transfer my wallet from the old purse to the new one, so I'll flip through that.
In the easy-to-get-to credit card section, I have two credit cards (my Discover card and my platinum Visa card), my ATM card, and my Sam's Club membership card. These are the cards I use at least once every two months.
Tucked behind the credit card section, I have less-used cards: A Firestone card, my corporate American Express (never used) and the platinum MasterCard Matt and I use for "joint" purchases. That one may see use soon, since Matt and I are going shopping for furniture.
My billfold section is exactly the size of a bill, which makes using it for money a little awkward. I keep credit card receipts in it, intending to enter them into Quicken and never really getting around to it. Let's see...
- A couple of lunches at the National Pancake House, which is just around the corner from my office.
- A mostly-faded T.G.I. Friday's receipt dated in June.
- Two receipts from Second Street.
- Dinner at Uno's.
- A belated Father's Day lunch at the Backfin with my dad.
- Several East Coast (gas station) receipts.
That's the clean, snapped-shut side of my wallet. Now, to move on to the zippered section...
In my coin pouch, I have - oh, look! - another receipt, this one for Sam's Club, two smallish yellow pills reading "44 227" that I have no idea what they are, and $2.90 in assorted coins.
On the side where I keep money, I have no money, but I do have two more receipts - one from CVS Pharmacy, and one from the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. And a picture of Matt.
On the other side, I have a handful of my business cards, and a bunch of insurance cards: medical, drug, AAA, two copies of my dental insurance, and one each cardboard and plastic insurance cards. I also have a card for making car reservations through my company, an access card for the website to manage my 401(k) from my previous job (that account is still active, or I'd have thrown it out), and a card explaining how to navigate my bank's automated telephone system.
Oh, what the heck; let's do the rest of the purse, since we're so close anyway.
In the same pouch where I keep the wallet, I have a coupon for Applebee's, two coupons for Ben & Jerry's, my sunglasses clip-on in a case to prevent it getting scratched, my checkbook, the joint account checkbook (both checkbooks have pens clipped to them), and a bottle that used to hold generic Tylenol, but which currently contains a half-dozen Advil, three Naproxen anti-inflammatory pills (for my feet), and a chewable Dramamine tablet.
In the "wallet" section of my purse, I have emergency "female supplies" (no, I didn't think you wanted any more information than that), a bunch of band-aids, an Alka-Seltzer Plus cold tablet, an eyeglasses repair kit, a book of checks for each of the checkbooks, and another handful of my business cards.
And finally, in the back pocket of my purse, I keep a pocket-sized copy of the Tao Te Ching and my Palm organizer.
I told you the rest of the purse was almost disgustingly clean.
Word of the Day: myriad - ten thousand; a great number
Heh. Funny I should mention my copy of the Tao Te Ching. Reading multiple translations of the same work is always good for some interesting insight. In particular, one phrase gets used over and over and over in the Tao Te Ching, and it almost makes me wish I could read ancient Chinese. It's translated variously as "the myriad creatures", "the ten thousand creatures", or "all [creatures/beings/things]", depending on how many liberties the translator was taking.
You can tell what it means: it's talking about all the non-human animals. But it makes me curious to know if, in the Chinese, they used an arbitrary large number, like ten thousand; or if they used a word meaning "many" like "myriad". I'm pretty sure the true translation wasn't "all beings", because otherwise none of the other translations would have appeared.
Reading multiple translations of the same work not only gives you some interesting insight into the culture of the original writer, but into the minds of the translators.
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Current Projects:
- Perl
| Previous Reflection |
Current Reflections Reflect Back |
Next Reflection |