Comments by Scoper...

HUMANITY IN A POCKET

You probably haven't gone through everything in your wallet since the last time your old one became so worn that you finally had to spring for a new one. But on that day you transferred - into another compact folder with that "new leather" smell - most everything society considers important or worthwhile about you. For a moment, you held yourself in the palm of your own hand.

If that seems a little "overboard," consider. Even if you've never lost your wallet, you've probably misplaced it at least once. Remember that sick feeling in your gut when you considered the possibility that it might be gone for good? And, unless you carry a "horse-choking wad," it probably wasn't the loss of the cash that worried you the most. 

"Oh, no!" you thought. "My driver's license, my credit cards, my debit card, my insurance card and my Social Security card, what happened to them?" If you're like any normal person, you probably felt quite naked. And if you were lucky enough to find your wallet intact, the sense of relief was almost orgasmic. If you weren't that lucky, replacing all those documents while praying that some low-life wasn't charging a New York shopping spree in your name, was at least enough to ruin your week, if not send you into therapy. (But of course you can't pay for therapy until you replace your cards!)

It seems like such a little thing, until it happens to you, then it ranks really high on the Bummer List, just below wrecking your car or losing your job. I'd go so far as to compare it to the drug addict who just scored a fix, but dropped the little packet on the way home. I've never been a hype, but I'll bet it's almost the same heartache. 

Isn't it odd? When you're standing buck-naked in the shower, you're still YOU, with all your knowledge, memories, dreams and aspirations. But if you're out in the world, fully clothed except for that little pack of documents, suddenly you're feeling a different kind of nakedness because you can't prove to a stranger that you are who you say you are. It's as if your whole sense of "self" was riding around in your back pocket, and suddenly it left you. 

There are even miniature versions of this: forgetting your PIN at the cash machine, or forgetting your password for a particular web site. But those are just minor inconveniences. To lose everything in your billfold is to lose, well, everything. 

We didn't mean to set ourselves up for these predicaments, and surely no one event, person, group or even government is wholly responsible. It was incremental, and we just bought into the convenience of it all. It's the curse of a bountiful, advanced, First-World "civilization." Most of the time we just accept it, trying not to dwell on the fact that almost every move we make leaves a trail, right down to the last mouse-click, and that government, in the name of the current "war on whatever" is only too happy to keep tabs. 

Some civil libertarians and privacy advocates are starting to make a little noise about these things, but it remains to be seen what effect that will have. Old-timers might remember the promise to Americans long ago that Social Security would never be used as a national identification number. But if you're under 50, I'll bet you've had yours memorized since college, or at least since your first job-hunt. 

You could legitimately point an accusing finger at the criminal element among us, but for whatever reason, a modern, sophisticated society is one in which hardly anyone trusts anyone anymore, unless the proof is in your pocket. 

Kris Kristofferson wrote: "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." But when you think about it, even struggling working stiffs like you and me have an awful lot to lose. And we're sitting on it right now. 

(IF YOU'RE A LADY WHO CARRIES HER BILLFOLD IN HER PURSE, SCOPER APOLOGIZES AND HOPES YOU'LL MAKE ALLOWANCES FOR HIS WORDING.) 
 

Hey, we know!
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