Pocket card produces desired results

Sometimes it feels like I'm traveling on a different wave length than a lot of card bloggers. I guess that's what makes life interesting.

An example:

Almost two years ago now, the phenomenon of "wallet card" swept the nation ... er, the nation's card blogs. I got caught up in the hysteria, too, but then I realized "wallet card" wasn't doing what I wanted it to do.

For many, "wallet card" was an opportunity to take their chosen wallet resident out on a tour and take photos of the card in various places. At least one blogger is still doing this. Then again, he lives in a place where there is a lot to see.

But that's not what I wanted to get out of wallet card. Instead, I wanted to re-create the damage that I achieved as a child when I loved a card so much that I carried it around with me.

Like this card. This is one of two Dodger cards from the 1975 set (the other was Steve Yeager) that I carried around with me for a period in my pocket.

Of course, as a 9-year-old, I didn't have a wallet. And that was the problem with wallet card -- it just couldn't reproduce the loving damage of a card stored in the pocket of a kid in Toughskins on the playground.

Wallets are very adult. They're created to keep things neat and tidy. They produce neat and tidy damage.

And, that's why I invented "pocket card" for 2016.

Nobody paid pocket card much mind. Probably because I mentioned it only briefly in passing at the end of a post. But I was serious about it. I was going to put that Panini Donruss Mike Piazza card, up at the top of this post, in my pocket and see if could create some natural '70s style wear-and-tear.

The card went in the pocket where it could absorb the most damage in the shortest span of time -- my left front pocket. That way it could get mixed in with car keys and spare change. ... I know, kids don't have car keys and spare change. But consider those the rocks and spare M&Ms of the adult world. Same dif.

The Piazza card went in my pocket in mid-July and emerged for good this past weekend.

Here is how it looks now:

THIS!

THIS is what I was wanted. A cool worn card as if I had rolled around on the playground with it for a couple of weeks, but in 2016 in the pocket of a grown man!

Here is the back:

Yup, pocket card had achieved its mission in a mere two months time.

In fact it had done so well that I noticed something while I was at work on Saturday.

I had gone back to the break area and stared at the vending machine (I don't buy much from it anymore, I just stare at it and think about what I used to eat). I reached casually into my left pocket and pulled out pocket card.

I noticed a new development. It was as if the cardboard had shifted. I took ahold of an end and it peeled back ever so easily -- just like taking blue tape off of a team bag full of cards.

The card was now two cards:

Jackpot!

You know, as a kid I always wondered how they put baseball cards together. I never had the heart to peel one apart then. Of course, I figured out the baseball card production model long ago, but pocket card had gone the extra mile.

I was so gleeful about this development -- really, I was -- that I returned pocket card Piazza to my pocket. I'm not even sure why. All that's left is for the card to disintegrate.

But I'm not ready to let go of my childhood just yet.