There are seven billion people on Earth, and not one of them has looked with greater disdain at people who wear wallet chains than me.  I have silently (okay, sometimes not so silently) condemned them as pathetic Neanderthals – insecure with themselves at best and very likely mentally ill.  This is why it was so painful for me to begin wearing one.

Naturally, this all began in Nebraska.  My wife and I and another couple from Oregon flew out to watch Oregon play football against Nebraska.  Friends of ours in Omaha were the quintessential hosts and even rented a minivan to haul us around.  I sat in the very back seat on the way to the game.  After we parked and made our way through approximately (this is a conservative estimate) one million tailgaters to the stadium, I realized my wallet was gone.  The van was too far away to check if it slipped out there.  Worrying about this, of course, allowed me to really relax and enjoy the game.

To my great relief, we found my wallet sitting on the back seat of the van.  I discovered that the angle of the back seat acted like a squeegee to extract wallets.  I’m not making this up.  When we got back to our friends’ house, David, also from Oregon, realized that his wallet had slipped out of his pocket!  (Don’t think for a moment this isn’t a maniacal scheme of the Chrysler Corporation.)

The next week, I went home early to pack for an out-of-town business trip and (and yes, this is beginning a theme) realized my wallet was missing.  Long story short, after neurotically turning my house upside down, and running late for my departure, I raced back to my office and found it perched on a chair where it had slipped out.  (No, Chrysler did not manufacture this chair, but perhaps it was made by a subsidiary.)

This was the fateful moment I first considered the painful indignity of a wallet chain.

As a result of painstaking research (i.e. wandering through a mall waiting for my wife to finish shopping), I stumble into a Harley Davidson shop.  Not the kind that sells the death bikes, the kind that sells t-shirts, jackets and key chains to make you LOOK like you’re the kind of wild and carefree guy who would ride a Harley (if your wife would let you).  And there they were – wallet chains as far as the eye could see.

Yes, I am a Neanderthal, and I am unquestionably insecure, but I am now an insecure Neanderthal who always knows exactly where to find my wallet.