[Video: selected scenes of beauty from an episode of Seinfeld]
I had an appointment for a routine visit to my doctor’s office in the morning. As with many doctors, I guess, every time you interact with the people at this office you’re expected to present proof of ID (driver’s license generally) and proof of medical coverage (Blue Cross/Shield, HMO card, whatever).I figured I’d minimize the fumbling with my wallet while actually at the check-in counter, by getting the two cards out of my wallet in advance, and putting them in my shirt pocket. So before going inside, I pulled my wallet out of my hip pocket…
Like many men’s wallets, mine includes not just a cash compartment but multiple “slots” into which you can insert credit cards, various forms of ID, wallet photos (if anyone still carries them), and so on. And like many men — think George Costanza, as in the video above — I probably consider these little cubbies waaaay too convenient for our own good. (I think I finally threw out my Borders Rewards card last year. I’d held onto it because, well, the company may have gone under but You Never Know!)
Anyway, I do try to keep the wallet organized, roughly speaking. Of course, I’ve got the driver’s license in the only slot with a transparent plastic window (I don’t know why; everyone always asks me to remove the license from the wallet before they’ll inspect it). I’ve got a slot reserved for local-business discount cards. There’s one for my debit card and a couple of others which I use regularly, and of course one for credit cards. My Costco and Walgreen’s membership/discount cards are in a slot by themselves. And so on. The point being: I got the driver’s license out immediately, and then flipped to the slot where I keep my Blue Cross card.
Panic, confusion: my Blue Cross card was not in my wallet!Mentally, I ran back through the last few days, picturing where I’d been, all the occasions on which I transferred the wallet from one pair of jeans to another, all those on which I’d handled the wallet at all. I went back weeks, and then months — just looking at moments when I might’ve handled my Blue Cross card. Had the pharmacist asked for it for some reason. (Answer: no.) The dentist? (Ditto.)
How the hell could I have lost my Blue Cross card?!?
And then I move on to consider the possibility that it had actually been removed by someone else, for some reason. Would there be some kind of… some kind of value to a health-insurance card? Maybe I was caught in some kind of not-very-sophisticated caper to steal expensive medical treatments — or prescriptions?!? — from a hospital or drugstore. Could I be arrested or otherwise held accountable for someone else’s use of the card? I couldn’t could I? And…
How the hell could I have lost my Blue Cross card?!?
All of that occurred mentally, as I said, within the space of about four to five seconds. In the meantime, I was rifling all the other compartments in my wallet: like, Jeezus, am I still carrying that goddam thing around? and like, Why do I have two discount cards from that department store?
I finally began to accept the inevitable. I was going to have to call The Missus to ask if for some arcane reason, she’d needed (and hence borrowed) my Blue Cross card — not a conversation I was looking forward to, because, well, (a) “Why would I have taken your Blue Cross card?” and (b) How the hell could I have lost my Blue Cross card?!?
And suppose — as was all but 100% certain — the Missus did not have my Blue Cross card. What then? Should I try to get the doctor’s staff to accept my status on a provisional basis? Maybe I could just breezily assert, “I don’t have my card with me but there’s no change since last visit” — head off the uncomfortable question (How the hell could you have lost your Blue Cross card?!?) before it even got asked.
Oh, I’ll tell you — I ran the gamut of four-letter words, sitting there in the car with the contents of my wallet scattered like autumn leaves around the front seats. No, really: How in the HELL—I looked down at my wallet. Actually, it wasn’t empty — I hadn’t bothered to look in that one slot because I wouldn’t possibly have put the Blue Cross card there, behind my debit card…
And then a moment later — patting my shirt pocket in satisfaction — I gathered up all my other cards and notes to myself and other wallet detritus, reloaded the ammo dump so to speak, and proceeded inside… having discovered my Blue Cross card right where really always keep it: in the slot behind my debit card.
I’d been outside in the car for fifteen minutes. But boy, am I smart: I didn’t have to fumble with my wallet at all!
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