I've this old Louis Vuitton wallet, I've had it forever, it was a gift.
Not the sort of thing I would buy for myself.
But in the last few years it's started to fall apart. The holder for the drivers license has lost its seam, and the library card and bus tickets have started to burst out of the credit-card slots. There are lottery tickets, dry cleaning receipts and pawn stubs where most people keep their money.
It wasn't made for this sort of abuse.
It's cursed; a wallet, as a gift, is always supposed to have some money in it. This one came empty, and has pretty much remained empty ever since.
One could think of other reasons it's empty, like my erratic work and romantic history, children out of wedlock, poor financial planning, but that would be patent superstition.
Still, I like it. It's a sort of symbol of the decaying aristocracy, the tattier it gets, the more weathered, the more the seams burst apart, the greater my attachment, Louis Vuitton is not supposed to be tatty or worn, it's the wallet of appearances, Louis Vuitton wasn't made for bus passes or library cards, Louis Vuitton customers drive Mercedes and only read books that they've bought...I rather cherish the incongruity of my ownership of it...
The owner of the restaurant, it's the day after the Christmas break, he's asked me a question that necessitates the reaching for my wallet, a pretext, and when I pull it out he notices that it's the same old one I had before the Christmas break, he wonders aloud why I haven't switched to the new one; I hasten to reassure him that it's only a matter of time, I've been busy, and after work when I get home move my essentials into the new wallet.
This new wallet, it came with no money in it, it's cursed.