Wallets

29-11-23 00 / episode: 317

Well it's one of those simple topics that I thought would make a great podcast and kind of like the topic of shirts, when I started I discovered there's lots of kinds of wallets. I was pretty surprised about that. I want to talk about people's habits carrying wallets and how they steal wallets and how to make your wallet difficult to steal.

Introduction

Hi and welcome to the Les Perras podcast episode 317. These podcasts are a great source of vocabulary for your extensive listening practice. Today we're going to talk about wallets and we might get into how people steal them and how you can stop people from stealing them.

Styles

Let's talk for a minute about some of the wallet styles although I won't spend much time here. I was quite relieved to find out there aren't as many styles of wallets as there are styles of shirts. But there still are quite a few different wallets out there. I made the long list short and here's my short list. There are some bifold wallets which means that they fold the money in half that's what the bi means. Then there's trifold wallets which will, as you can guess, fold the money into three. Then there's a passport wallet which is quite a bit bigger because it has to be able to hold your passport and it's great for travelling. I have one and I've used it quite a bit when I travel. Then we can get into digital wallets. This is a whole new kettle of fish. These wallets are for keeping your money for the digital currencies. They're complex and I won't explain them here. But they are a kind of wallet so I put them in the list.

Where

Where do you carry your wallet? In your front pocket or back, pants or jacket or other bag? When I was in high school and university I used to carry my wallet in my back pocket. My back right pocket to be precise. I don't know why. I guess it was just kind of the masculine fashion back then. Since then I've tried carrying my wallet in my front pocket, but it's pretty bulky in my front pocket and it makes it hard to sit down comfortably. I have too much garbage in my wallet, and it's a little bit too big and bulky. When I wear a jacket I like to put the wallet in my jacket pocket, especially when I'm in Canada, because I probably keep my jacket on most of the time in the winter. But now I'm getting to the point where I would feel happier going with a minimalist wallet or even wallet free. I think the ultimate wallet would be one that you could strap onto your body like your wrist or upper arm when you're jogging. Then it won't get in the way and you can take clothes on and off without bother.

Stealing

This is an art. The art of pickpocketing is highly advanced, I guess. It’s hard to believe someone could take your wallet out of your pocket without you noticing it so that’s why I call it an art. There is a downside to calling this an art. The minute you call it an art it becomes something respectable indeed it becomes even something desirable.

I don't think it's very desirable to try and learn how to steal things from other people. So half of me wants to call it an art and half of me wants to call it a despicable thing to do.

I've been fortunate because I've never run into a pickpocket, and I've never had my wallet stolen.

Steal proof

Maybe I've never had my wallet stolen because I've gone to certain lengths to avoid theft. When I travel I usually have some kind of money belt. It's funny because they call it a money belt but I never put it around my waist like I would put a belt around my waist. It was rather like a pouch with a string that I put around my neck, and then I put the string under my shirt. It's not pretty, and it's not convenient, but it sure is safe. There's probably lots of different kinds of money belts out there but as I did a little bit of searching around I discovered another safety wallet. This one is RFID proof. That means that people can't use scanners to scan your credit cards and steal electronic information off your credit cards. It actually Shields them. That sounds like a pretty good thing to me, except that I've never encountered a situation where somebody could scan my wallet to steal information from me. By and large I'm not worried about it but I suppose in some cities it might be a real issue. So the question now becomes where do you carry your wallet, and have you ever had your wallet stolen? Or what do you do when you go travelling? How do you keep your things safe when you're travelling about in the city? Put some comments below let me know what you're thinking. If you like listening to English for your extensive English listening then hit the Subscribe button below so you can get more of my podcasts. I’d love it if you made a comment below, too. Tell me if you have a new super safe wallet.