Back in the early 1990’s, I had my wallet stolen in New York City while traveling on business to fix a file-tracking system for CNA Insurance in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Ever since that fateful trip, I have carried a second wallet — a decoy. In this worn, cast-off wallet, I stashed expired credit cards, an old driver license, maybe an old hotel access card, some coupons, thickened it with those fake free cards you always get in the mail, and (of course) a few honest greenbacks for a finishing touch of authenticity. For those same many years, friends and family have berated and teased me for what seemed to them such a silly, paranoid idea.

My “paranoia” was recently validated when I heard Dan Mulvenna, an international security consultant, during an interview by Bob Edwards on NPR‘s Morning Edition last Friday. He, too, recommended to listeners that they carry a “mugger’s wallet” when they travel — a decoy, filled with expired credit cards, various sundries, and a bit of cash to appease the mugger.

Listen to the interview on Morning Edition (2003-05-02)

The word is slowly spreading — even a website intended for tourists from Ireland visiting the United States now claims that “many people in New York carry a mugger’s wallet, i.e. an extra wallet with small change and one dollar bills.”

Vindication, at long last.

Make Your Own

1. Get an old wallet. Whenever I get a new wallet (such as for Christmas), I save the previous one or two older wallets in a folder in my filing cabinet. Buy one at a garage sale. Make one out of duct tape.
2. Put cash in it. Not so much that your vacation will be ruined, but just enough cash that if a mugger thumbs through his newly acquired wallet, he won’t be too upset.
3. Add photo identification. Something with your picture on it, but something expired or easily replaceable. A library card, an expired driver license with an old address, last year’s Six Flags season pass card.
4. Include a credit card. Make sure it is expired, or from an account that is already closed. I always add two or three cards. A more risky alternative is to use fake cards included in mailed credit card offers.
5. Add some filler. Look in your regular wallet and you will undoubtedly find receipts, old Starbucks or Jamba Juice gifts cards, frequent diner club cards, bus/subway transfers, and coupons — and add some of those to your decoy.
6. Use the decoy. What’s the point of having a decoy wallet if you always pull out your regular wallet to pay for things?

Two hundred years ago today, France continued its centuries-old tradition of running away with its tail between its legs rather than put up an honest and forthright fight.

Two hundred years ago today, the young United States broke its own constitutional laws in ratifying a treaty with France.

Things haven’t changed much, have they?

Napoleon’s colony at Santa Domingo revolted, Haiti expelled the French troops, a war with England was potentially around the corner, and the United States was breathing down the neck of the French colonies. The French government was running out of cash, the Americans were growing less enthusiastic about having French neighbors, and Napoleon wanted to strengthen the United States in order to provide a viable rival to England’s dominance of the seas in an effort to “lessen her arrogance.”

An amazing move for France, considering France’s mighty military history:

• France lost the Gallic Wars to Italy;
• France lost the Italian Wars, becoming the only country to ever lose two wars to Italy;
• France lost the War of the Augsburgs;
• France lost the War of the Spanish Succession;
• France won the French Revolution — which almost doesn’t really count since the Frenchmen who won had been fighting Frenchmen who lost;
• France lost the Napoleonic Wars;
• France lost the Franco-Prussian War;
• France almost lost World War I except by the intervention of the United States;
• France almost lost World War II except by the intervention of the United States and England;
• France lost the war in Indochina; and
• France lost the Algerian Rebellion.

Two hundred years ago today, France and the United States signed a purchase treaty to sell the Louisiana Purchase to the fledgling colony for 80 million francs, a sum more than one and a half times the Gross Domestic Product of the United States at the time.

The barely solvent New World colony had to make the purchase on credit.

Man, things just really don’t change, do they?!

Author’s Note: Before anyone gets their bikinis in a twist, I am patronymically French — I am therefore allowed to tweak le nipples of the French.

Today is Tax Day in the United States, with far too many people having procrastinated until the last possible minutes to file. A large percentage of those still file manually — pencil, paper, and calculator in hand.

A such, I declare the necessity of a few math and accountant jokes:

• Several gifted minds in varying mental disciplines were posed with the following question: What is 2 times 2? The engineer of the group whipped out his slide rule, shuffled it back and forth, and announced that the answer was 3.99. The physicist consulted his technical references, set up the problem on his laptop computer, and announced “it lies between 3.98 and 4.02”. The mathematician cogitated for a while, oblivious to the rest of the world, then announced, “I don’t know what the answer is, but I can prove an answer exists!” The philosopher asked, “What do you mean by 2 times 2?” The accountant closed the doors and windows, looked around carefully, and then asked, “What do you want the answer to be?”
• An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician were staying in three separate hotels while attending a technical seminar. The engineer woke up and smelled smoke. He went out into the hallway and saw a fire, so he filled a trashcan from his room with water and doused the flames. He then went back to bed. The physicist woke up in his hotel room and smelled smoke. He opened his door and saw a fire in the hallway. He walked down the hall to a fire hose and, after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc., he extinguished the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. The mathematician woke up on the other side of town and smelled smoke. He went into the hall, saw the fire and then the fire hose. He thought for a moment and then exclaimed, “Ah, a solution exists!” and then went back to bed.
• There was an Indian chief, and he had three squaws that he kept in three separate teepees. When he would come home late from hunting, he would not know which teepee contained which squaw, as it was very dark. One day, he went hunting and killed a hippopotamus, a bear, and a buffalo. He put a hide from each animal into a different teepee so that when he came home late, he could feel inside the teepee and he would know which squaw was inside. After about a year, all three squaws had produced children. The squaw on the bear had a baby boy; the squaw on the buffalo hide had a baby girl. But the squaw on the hippopotamus had both a girl AND a boy. So what is the moral of the story? The squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.
• Suppose a mathematician parks his car, locks it with his key and walks away. After walking about 50 yards the mathematician realizes that he has dropped his key somewhere along the way. What does he do? If he is an applied mathematician he walks back to the car along the path he has previously traveled looking for his key. If he is a pure mathematician he walks to the other end of the parking lot where there is better light and looks for his key there.
• A team of engineers was required to measure the height of a flag pole. They only had a measuring tape, and were getting quite frustrated trying to keep the tape along the pole. It kept falling down. A mathematician came upon them cogitating on their problem, and he proceeded to remove the pole from the ground and thus measured it easily. As he left, one engineer said to the other: “Just like a mathematician! We need to know the height, and he gives us the length!”
• One day a farmer called up an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician and asked them to fence off the largest possible area with the least amount of fence. The engineer made the fence in a circle and proclaimed that he had the most efficient design. The physicist made a long, straight line and proclaimed, “We can assume the length is infinite…” and pointed out that fencing off half of the Earth was certainly a more efficient way to do it. The mathematician just laughed at them. He built a tiny fence around himself and said, “I declare myself to be on the outside.”

I studied mathematics in college, served my stint in accounting for far too many years, and have been an engineer for the past decade or so. I am therefore entitled to poke fun at them all.