i’m just sitting here in my underwear and wanna talk about death…

most guys carry a wallet…

…i carry a money clip.

it’s not ’cause of some coolness factor. it’s because i never found a wallet i really liked, but i like money clips.

blame my grandmother.

when i was growing up my mom used to allow us a fifty dollar budget to find stuff we liked in the sears catalog. she applied the same budget when we had relatives asking for xmas gift ideas – the only problem was my grandmother…she asked what we wanted out of the NIEMAN MARCUS catalog. do you know what a pain in the ass it is to pick a gift under the half a bill mark in a catalog that includes “his and hers humvees”?

no pressure, eh?

so, one year i picked out a sterling silver (turned out to be plated) money clip with my intials carved into it. i don’t know where it is now, but it got me hooked. after that no regular wallet would do. i used that for a while, tried switching to a slim, cigarette-style case (mine, in truth, was a business card case, but friends still use the same thing following my lead) and i returned to the clip thang.

my current one is what i refer to as “identity theft one-o-one”.

it contains my driver’s license, my check card, my social security card, my best friend’s business card (all you need for a personal reference), my dad’s business card (the nearest relative not living with me) and a card my bank gave me with both the routing number AND my bank account number on it like what you’d see at the bottom of a check.

(i must be crazy, fearless, or drunk to admit online that all of this is in my pocket at any given time – but those who know me know i’m a little of all of the above)

but i’ve added something new to it, which could either be a product of insanity or depression…

(again, those who know me know it’s a little from “column a” and a little from “column b” here…)

…my own little morbid top ten.

it’s a list of ten people, with three columns (real name, name in my phone, phone number) with the heading “call these people in this order if i’m no longer breathing”. it’s ten people i want called when i die. i don’t know how much longer i have left, but i never figured i’d make it past forty or forty-five, so in less than ten years i figure i will REALLY be living on borrowed time. i won’t say who’s on the list, or what order anyone is in, but rest assured when i pass ten people reading this will get a call – actually, more so, ’cause i’m counting on those ten to spread the word, as it were.

i came up with the idea ’cause my peer group is fairly stratified and that way everyone who needs to know will know…even if it’s second hand (if you don’t make the ten, don’t be terribly offended – i did limit myself to ten folks, and every phone i’ve ever had typically has between 150 and 200 names and numbers in it) but i figure it’s a safe thing to do. again, it’s not to be morbid, it’s just to make sure nobody calls me after a couple of weeks only to figure out i’ve been cremated and my ashes scattered whereever without them knowing.

so, there we are.

yes, i’ve had more than a couple as i’m writing this (show of hands – who’s suprised?) but it’s something i’ve been meaning to do for a while – i had a handwritten version in there for a while now, but my handwriting sucks, so i actually printed up a more official version. hopefully it works. and if it doesn’t, and i die, and none of you know, then at least you know i tried.