My Identity Has Been Trashed

Remember a while back, in a post titled "I Blog, Therefore I Am?", I spoke of being cautious of revealing too much on the blog to thwart potential identity theft? How, years ago, I had my identity stolen and the character ran around "renting" cars as me but never returned them?

Well I've got one for ya. After I returned from my trip to Utah, things were going smoothly. I don't get out of the house much except for the mandatory trips to the local grocery and sometimes a trip to Wal*Mart, Lowe's, and/or Home Depot to get some plants to pass my time piddling around in the yard.

I don't have a wallet, per se, but a credit card holder where I keep credit cards, driver license, health insurance card, triple A card, etc. Just the basics. I was carrying even less after I had accidentally left my wallet at the grocery back in the springtime. I went through and took out everything I didn't use consistently. That meant getting down to two general purpose credit cards, no frequent flyer miles cards, etc. I still do all my banking (by mail) in California so I took out my ATM cards.

Now, you'd think I'd be more careful after that. I was lucky that it had been returned to the grocery courtesy desk. I figure I left it at the checkout since I always charge my groceries — double United frequent flyer miles! During the summer, I wear work-out type shorts that have no pockets and I stick the credit card holder under the elastic waistband and just leave my t-shirt untucked so it's covered up.

During the week I was back from Utah, I did a grocery and Wal*Mart run. I didn't notice the credit card holder was missing for about another week. I turned the house upside down and thought I'd check in with both places to see if I had inadvertently left it there.

The kind folks at Wal*Mart had, indeed, found the wallet. Hooray! Um, not so fast, trigger. See, it had been a week, and since I hadn't returned to claim it, they threw it in the trash. How fucked up is that? It's not like I didn't have my brand new NYS driver license in there. Or that I live about 2 minutes away from the store. Or that I live in a small town where, if you don't know everyone, you know someone who knows that person. My "life" was so important that they fucking threw it away.

Advice
• Only carry what you need. I was glad that I'd weeded things out a couple of months before.
• Keep a spreadsheet with a list of your credit cards, the account numbers, and customer service phone numbers. It made things so much easier when I had to call and cancel everything.
• Did you know you can request a duplicate driver license in NYS over the Internet? I paid $15, rather than going down to the hell that is DMV and paying for a new one.
• Don't write your PIN number on ATM or credit cards. If you can't remember it, it's too complicated, so change it to something you can remember.

The whole experience left me a bit empty. First that everything that was me essentially fits into a little wallet. Second, that my life is so worthless, that some douche bag at the local Wal*Mart could callously pitched it in the garbage.