Revision Selection

Revised Peice

I use to keep my wallet packed with personal trinkets and random odds and ends. After losing it twice in the last two years I’ve given up on keeping anything important in there. I do have a few cards and scraps of paper that someone would find interesting if they were to find this wallet in the likely scenario that I lose it once again.

The first thing he or she would find would be my Student ID card. The card would give them my name and the picture would give them a clue as to who I am. My grease hair hangs down over my eyes and is spiking in back thanks to my cowlick. I’m wearing a beat up hoody and my glasses are bent crooked on my face. With this information it would be fair to conclude that I am a slob of a young adult who is taking the easy college route by attending community college.

I have a business card from my work, but without my name on it. I also have a business card for “Americas Best- Contacts and Eyeglasses”. Finally I have a little slip given out by managers when they want to show appreciation for a good job done. Unfortunately this slip again doesn’t have my name on it and without knowledge of my workplace the finder would have no idea what the card represented. Together the three cards would serve more to confuse the finder than they do to help them learn about who I am.

The finder would next find a few receipts I’ve left in my wallet. These receipts would show a twenty dollar purchase from the Disney Store, two movie tickets, and more than a few fast food meals. This would give the finder the impression that I am wasting my money. He or she would think I was a stereotypical college student; dumb with money, eats fast food for every meal, and more concerned with entertainment than anything else.

Finally, my debit card, a lone dollar, and some loose change would lead the finder to think I was broke. While the lack of personal items and photos would make them believe I was impersonal.

The truth behind these items is very different from the first glance conclusions they raise. My picture was taken on a very bad day, right before I cut my hair back to its usual short trimmed look. I am actually a bit of a neat freak and hate that my picture portrays me as a slob. The Americas Best eyeglass card is there because I am practically blind without my glasses and am in the middle of ordering a new pair. Glasses are a huge part of my self-identity, yet my wallet only hinted at how important they are to me. The work cards, if they had my name on them and were easier to understand, should have let the finder know I am working my way through college while trying to impress my managers and hopefully stay on after the Christmas season. The Disney Store and movie receipts are only there because of odd timing. I had just bought my girlfriend a present and still had tickets from over a month ago. I am actually frugal with my money and rarely waste it. I was forced to buy fast food that week because three days in a row I went straight from school to work, with no time in-between to grab the lunch I normally bring from home. Finally the lack of sentimental items is because I’ve learned my lesson not too keep anything too important in something as easily lost as my wallet.

Together my wallet portrays me as a rumbled college student with little money who likes to waste the money he does have on fast food and entertainment, and who has nothing important enough in his life to keep around for sentimental value. This conclusion is fair, but inaccurate. Wallets only give hints of a person’s identity. A person’s identity is a hard thing to understand, even when you have known them for a long time, so expecting to learn a person’s identity just from the items in their wallet is a misguided adventure. The finder will get results, and some of their conclusions may be true, but it is far too easy to misjudge a person based on this information alone.

Original Selection

Usually my wallet is fairly spars and contains little personal information. But sense it is fairly full right now it might be possible to figure out a little about me. I have few cards, a few scrapes of paper, and few other odds and ends.

Let’s start with the cards. My EVCC ID gives my name, my school, and a fairly accurate image of my face. It also has an example of my horrible hand writing representing my signature. Depending on the finders opinion of students and community colleges it could be determined that I am either a hard working person trying to gain an education, or that I am a slacker student partying my way through college. Other items in my wallet are needed to gain a better understanding.

My employee business card and an old slip acknowledging my hard work from a manager give the impression that I am working my way through college and probably lead a busy life. A business card from “Americas Best – Contacts and Eyeglasses” shows that I had an eye exam scheduled for last week. That card fails to show that I have very poor eyesight and am entirely dependent on my glasses. Without that knowledge it would impossible to know that my glasses are very dear to me and a key part of my own self image.

Moving on from cards the finder would next examine the receipts I have in my wallet. The Disney Store receipt actually shows a gift I recently purchased for my girlfriend, but by itself would seem very odd in a young college students belongings. The finder could assume that the item was a gift and that I am a loving boyfriend, or they could assume that I am a bit of a pansy and buy myself stuffed animals. My movie ticket receipt from over a month ago show that I went on a date, because I purchased two tickets, and that for some reason I enjoyed the movie enough to keep my stubs.  From this the finder could conclude that I loved this movie or that it was a first date or that it was some special occasion. It would not show them that this was the first movie I had been able to afford to take my girlfriend to in many months, and that my identity as a good boyfriend is very important to me.

Finally my lone debit card and low amount of money would possible lead the finder to assume that I am poor or broke. In reality I simply lose my wallet on a fairly regular basis and therefore try to keep important items out. This is also why there are no pictures or sentimental mementos. But sense the finder does not know this they could easily conclude that I was impersonal or that I had no close ties.

As you can see there are many ways to interpret the contents of my wallet. The many ways have a lot to do with the perspective of the person who is doing the looking. A person’s belongings can only tell so much about them, and only with a small amount of certainty.