I am an Arse.

If I'd woken up this morning thinking "hmmm, my wallet's looking a little dirty," then I could have understood it. Even subconsiously, the seed would have been planted, and the whole thing would have made a little bit more sense.

But I'm secretly proud of the slightly seedy patina that my wallet has gained through years of selfless service. It was a present from my Mum and Dad - apparently, for vaguely abstract "luck" purposes, a wallet or purse should always be a gift, and it should never be given with nothing in it - this charming little slice of dead cow skin ticked all the boxes, and looked pretty good as well. For its benefit, I always made sure I was never in a position to overstuff it with notes - that took some careful career planning - and I always made sure I had just enough plastic cards to fill it, even if I had to make some of them myself out of old ice-cream cartons and strips of VHS videotape.

It only takes a moment of thoughlessness to lose an old friend. Even as I slammed the door of my washing machine and set the cycle to "Economy Wash" I had no idea that I'd sealed the fate of my leathery little buddy. It wasn't until the suds rained down that my hand suddenly flashed to my right hip pocket and felt only a telling emptiness, and by that time it was already too late. Short of a fire axe, there was no way of freeing my wallet from it's dizzyingly spinning death.

Hours later, I still I had to wait for the spin cycle to subside and the water to drain away before I could finally rescue my faithful friend from the watery grave I'd consigned him to. A papery shadow of his former self, even mouth-to-mouth would have been fruitless. His lustre gone, I tried propping him up on on a radiator to dry him out and see if he'd regain his former glory, but he still looks sad, shrivelled, and accusingly frail. The twenty-pound note he was faithfully holding for me has been ground up into its constituent fibres and absorbed by all my pants and socks - I'm pretty sure even all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put it together again, and that dumping a load of wet laundry onto a bank counter and asking for a tenner and two fivers in exchange probably isn't going to work.

But who knows - my wallet's a resillient little bugger (he's weathered many a financial famine and still come out on top), so maybe he'll take this in his stride and come back fighting. I've already massaged him with vegetable oil in an attempt to nurse him back to health - it's touch and go at the moment, but I don't want to lose him yet...