Lest you think this will be about the convoy of truckers and hangers-on who occupy(ed) our nation's capital, it's not; it's about my wallet.

Before I continue rambling about wallets, it should also be noted that my dad also outfitted our family car with a CB Radio around that time, which was really cool.

My next important wallet was made by Ocean Pacific (OP) and used velcro—velcro, for those who don't know, was invented in 1941, but the patent expired in 1978, giving a new life to this fantastic (albeit noisy) fastening system. Also interesting to note that the original inventor, George de Mestral, came up with the idea while hiking in the alps and noticed burdock seeds sticking to his socks and his dog. OP was a Californian Surf Culture brand in the '80s that all Canadians thought was cool because (if you asked Americans at the time) we lived in snowbanks and got around using dog teams.

OP was the last cool wallet of my youth, and after it disintegrated, there were a series of genuinely unremarkable wallets. I had the tall wallet, the thin wallet, the bulky wallet, the tri-fold, bi-fold, and bill-fold wallet. I had travel wallets, passport wallets, and even money clips. They all did their job(s), but they didn't hold a candle to my early wallets—when wallets were new.

It wasn't until we could "TAP" bank cards to buy things that I got serious about my wallet. If they were sufficiently tech-savvy, criminals could walk past me and "TAP" money off my cards even if it was still in my wallet.

Flashback to 2013 or 2014, and the father-son team of Daniel and Paul Kane launched a Kickstarter campaign to create the Ridge Wallet. I got in on the action. The feature I was most interested in was RFID-blocking, preventing thieves from skimming money and my identity from my various cards. As a bonus, it was also the size of your standard card, can hold at least 10 cards, and had a money clip for cash. I still have this wallet. I love this wallet, and it's a testament to excellent quality that I haven't had to return it, fix it, or do anything other than pull cards in and out.

Alas, it's time for a change, so I bought a fancy new wallet off Amazon that will arrive sometime Saturday. From what I could see online, it looks like a cool grown-up's wallet; it's thin, holds a bunch of cards, has RFID-blocking, a spot for cash, a place for frequently used cards, sports a window for my ID, and looks like carbon fibre. It's cool. I hope it's cool. I hope this will become a wallet to remember. Perhaps I'm putting too much weight on a simple wallet.