Column - Coat Check

A man should be judged by the content of his character. But what about the content of his pockets?

This occurred to me the other day after putting on my midlevel winter coat, the one between fall jacket and parka. I haven't worn it since March. The pockets were jammed with stuff.

I wondered what all this stuff would say about me if I were to meet an untimely end in this coat. You know, if I get caught in a crosswalk by a county supervisor or something. You never know.

I also thought back to 1999, when Quad-City Times columnist Bill Wundram asked Vice President Al Gore what he had in his pockets.

“He reached into the pants of his dark blue suit and pulled out his pockets. Empty. Nothing in them. Not even a comb,” Wundram wrote. If that screamed out-of-touch, my pockets yell pack rat.

You'd find a blue ballpoint pen and a small beat-up notebook with illegible handwriting, pegging me as either a doctor or a journalist. One check of the crumpled ATM slips solves that mystery.

There's an orange Bic lighter and two tickets to the Michigan-Iowa men's basketball game last February. A sports fan, perhaps. There is also some spare Christmas twinkle lights and a fuse.

But it's the stack of receipts that would reveal more than I might like.

I'd be glad they found a Feb. 13 Target receipt. It shows a romantic soul shelling out hard-earned scratch on Valentine's Eve to buy beef tenderloin, wine, imported cheese and Haagen Dazs to pamper his wife. Aww.

Less flattering is the Red Lobster receipt on March 27. Who is this “Guest 1” anyway, the person who had two 18-ounce beers, an appetizer sampler with cheese sticks, fried clams and lobster-stuffed mushrooms and, to top it off, the “ultimate feast?” Wow, how many seven-deadlies did I cover in one sitting? I'd point out what Guest 4 had, but it's not her coat and I'm not really dead, yet.

If that didn't say enough about my idea of healthy eating, perhaps three separate Hy-Vee receipts topped by “Choc. Chip Muffins” finishes the job. In my defense, my kids love them.

And there's no doubt I have children. That explains all the mac and cheese, fish sticks, “Suave kids” and that large battery buy I made on Dec. 27. The kids may also explain receipts for Bill's Drinking Establishment.

Oh, I tried to be good. I bought skim milk and organic eggs and all sorts of fruit and veggies. I'd like to say I consumed them all, but that would be fibbing. I don't have a good poker face, but there is a deck of cards in my coat.

But now, I have a clean slate and empty pockets. And to celebrate, I'll have the ultimate feast.

n Contact the writer at (319) 398-8452 or todd.dorman@gazcomm.com