Out of sight, but not out of pocket.

There are more where these come from, considerably more. I admit that I enjoy visiting them when I look for something else in my wallet (I'm certainly not looking for these).

I must still have an entire set of student cards from Tel Aviv University, from between 1994 to 2000. The bar codes on them, even if they're still readable (unlike this one) don't read anything anymore. And flashing an old card at the parking attendants in the parking lots doesn't get me the student discount. Nor does trying to use it at the library permit me to take out a book. It would be nice, but it doesn't happen. Some of the older cards might be useful for breaking a lock like we see it done in the movies (if that really can be done - I've never seen it happen live), but this particular card is too thin and paperlike for the job.

I once used my Open University moderator's card in order to get a discount at some attraction to which we took the kids. I think that was the only time I used it. I used the card when I tried describing myself as a teacher at a virtual school and didn't get the proper response - it was then that I remembered that I had that card in my wallet, even then probably expired, even though I was still doing occasional work for the Open U. I never needed the card for parking, and frankly it never really helped much. It did give me the right to free parking, but at a parking lot substantially far enough away from the campus that I was never sure that it was worth it. Having the card also gave me an attractive discount on material from the Center for Educational Technology, but I rarely found there something that I thought the kids would use.

I don't remember when I stopped paying my dues to the teachers' union. I wasn't teaching, so there wasn't much of a reason to continue my membership. Of course when I returned to the educational system it did make sense to again start paying those dues, but I'd already gotten out of the habit, and I'm never in a situation where a union activist approaches me and asks me to join. If someone would ask me, I'd happily rejoin. On the other hand, my guess is that I'm among the very last people around with one of these, about twenty year old, cards, and that makes it all the harder to throw it away.