When Maybelle empties her pockets before putting her clothes into the wash, she sometimes feels as if she is on an archaeological dig. As she turns the material inside out, she never knows what she might find. Usually she can count on at least one receipt from TJ Maax, because she hangs onto the small, smeared pieces of paper for months after they are of any use. Scared she might need to return a 12-dollar pair of pants bought on impulse—Maybelle loves a bargain, even if it is ill-fitting—or the cracked plate she thought would be perfect under the jade plant in the den.

Always there is loose change. Maybelle and her husband, Precious, have taken to putting their extra coins in an old Folger’s coffee can in the kitchen. They call it the “bank of can.” Every so often Precious takes the can to one of those coin-separating machines at the grocery store. The one at Harris Teeter, he says, is less conspicuous than the one at Kroger, as if he might be worried someone they know will see him and think, “Isn’t that Maybelle’s husband? I thought she married money.”

In reality, Maybelle and Precious love the “bank of can,” for it reveals untold treasure for them when they least expect it: dinner at a favorite restaurant, concert tickets for the symphony, payment for overdue library books.

Sometimes in Maybelle’s pockets there will be a tattered tampon, the wrapper half off, the slender sphere gone useless. It disgusts Maybelle when she finds such a remnant, makes her feel inadequate somehow. Surely if Maybelle were a different kind of woman, a more organized gal or a classier broad, this would not happen. Instead of tooling around town with exposed feminine hygiene products in her pockets, she would sport a zippered Prada case like Sally’s—or at least a plastic baggie—to protect her monthly arsenal. Alas, Maybelle is not that kind of woman.

Instead she is the kind of woman who ends up with matchbooks in her pockets even though she doesn’t smoke. Maybelle tried to master the fine art of blowing smoke rings in college when she thought it might make her seem alluring to the handsome fraternity president in the front row of her political science class. Because Maybelle dissolved into fits of coughing every time she lit up, she may be one of the few folks who believes Bill Clinton when he says he “didn’t inhale.”

It was all for naught anyway, for what Maybelle didn’t know at the time was this: the only thing that would have caused Frat Boy to look her way was a penis. And that Maybelle does not carry around in her pocket.

Copyright 2008, Amy Lyles Wilson