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The Cursed Wallet
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2441
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.
Mennonite Love Making
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2878
The tablecloth inspires me with what must be a prairie Urban Legend.
That of the Mennonite Love Making.
It goes like this.
The Mennonites, (or Hutterites, or Amish, or pick you minority bible group...) have grown rather inbred.
TO curb this they try to bring in new blood.
They solicit young men at bars, then bring them back to their farms where they're introduced to the "Young Amish Girl"; a breeder chosen by them, and they make love to her through a hole in a sheet. Supervising all this is an Amish man reading from the Bible.
Now, this rumor, as titillating as it is, exists in some form of or another across North America, but while I've heard many variations and heard many people swear as to its veracity I've never met anyone who's actually done it. Or has confessed to having done it might be more accurate.
But a curious urban legend nonetheless.
The Mustard Seed and Chartered Accountants
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Conversations
- Hits: 1507
The night he got fired he got moved out of his house. An altercation of some sort with his roommates, not his fault. They're crazy.
He's been staying at the Mustard Seed ever since. Not the one downtown but the nicer one out in the Foothills Industrial Park. It's one of the nicest shelters in the city, he tells me. He takes a bus in every day to get to work. He views it as mostly a positive thing, he's meeting new people, setting goals for himself.
At the moment though he's trying to find a chartered accountant. He wants to know if he can write off his bus passes on his taxes.
Goals and Aspirations
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1651
He's got this list of goals and aspirations that he shares with me. Ive seen it before, I just like to see if it's changed any...
He wants to be a musician, a painter and artist, a writer of books, an evangelist, he's just got to work on some personal issues first...
Maybe that's why I like him so much. We have a lot in common....
He tells me that he wants to become a police officer. That takes me by surprise, the last time we spoke he wanted to become a Chef like his father...
I ask him, "Why do you want to become a police officer?"
"I've got my reasons" he tells me meaningfully.
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