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We can help (519) 853-2308 sales@solardirectcanada.com Cheaper, greener options are available Completely offset your electrical bill with no money down Or earn up to 14% annual income Call us or visit us on the web today to learn more Locally owned and operated in Acton SolarDirectCanada.com 1990-2015 905-510-9739 wayne@wisecracks.com www.Ha l t onWi s eC r a c k s . c om • Crack Injection Repair Specialist •Wise Dry Interior Drain Systems • Lifetime Fully Transferrable Warranty • Sump Pump Renewel Installations Professional, Cost Effective Solutions for Wet Basements . ..since 1991 Leaky Basement? Call Us! * Enrollment fee and monthly fees vary by location. Offer expires 12/31/15 and requires joining same day as first visit for a minimum 12-month recurring billing contract. Valid for new Curves members only. Not valid with any other offer or discount. Valid at participating location only. Classes and Jillian Michaels workouts scheduled by location and only offered at participating locations. No cash value. © 2015 CURVES INTERNATIONAL, INC. (1504) JOIN TODAY AND GET 50% OFF OUR ENROLLMENT FEE!* 41 Main St South Georgetown, ON 905-702-0418 COMMENT Recently, The Sidekick changed jobs. Now she was quite content to stay where she had worked for six years. All the staff were good friends, and her boss was great. But between construction and traffic conges- tion, the commute to work was taking longer every year, becoming increasingly onerous. She bid adieu to her colleagues in Brampton, and traded in the 45 minutes each way on the road, for a 10-minute commute, and started another chapter of her employment career closer to home. As her colleagues at the old location wished her well, there was (as there always is) an exchange of cards, letters and gifts, to send her off to the next chapter of her life. One of the gifts was, quite surprising, presented to The Sidekick by the woman who owns the coffee shop in the building where her old office is located. The Sidekick has purchased her morning coffee and countless lunches from that shop every work day for the past six years, as she came into work. The gift was a Guess wallet. The Sidekick was delighted-- Guess products are quite classy, and The Sidekick thought it would look mighty nice whenever she pulled it out of her wallet. My personal theory was the shop owner was taking pity on The Sidekick's old wallet, which had certainty seen better days. So with the arrival of every new wallet on the scene, there comes a day when one must transfer the contents from the old wallet to the new one. And that ain't no two-minute job. As I sat at my end of the breakfast table earlier this week, I watched as she emptied the contents from her old wallet on the table, then started a piece by piece sort into piles, all those little cards, snippets of paper, and countless receipts, that were somehow compacted into that old wallet. Oh, and there was some money hidden in some of the little corners of the old wallet. The resulting pile on the table defied logic! How on earth did that much 'stuff' get crammed into that little wallet? The Sidekick began the task of deciding what she needed in her wallet, and what she no longer had any use for. "Well, I guess I should keep my driver's licence in there," she started, as I suggested the health card might also come in handy. The obvious cards, all attached to financial institutions, were quickly moved to the 'save and keep' pile. I was beginning to feel like I was watching one of those TV shows on HGTV, where the home- owner is taking part in some sort of a purge, and the house contents are in those three piles-- 'keep', 'sell', and 'dump'. The Sidekick flipped the gift cards over to the dump pile. "Wait a minute," I interject, "Is there still any money on those (gift) cards yet?" "I don't know," she said, "I've had them forever." One was a gas card giving 10 cents per litres dis- count. "What about this one? You can save 10 cents per litre. That's huge!" The thought of magically changing the fill-up of the F150 from $120, to $108 was kinda exciting to me. The exercise went on, as she discarded card after card and I picked up the discarded cards, and made sure they didn't have any value. I'll admit, we were making great progress, as she purged the contents of her wallet, and I in- creased the contents of mine. I passed on the stack of appointment reminder business cards, (I don't need to be reminded when I'm having my next dye job,) and I don't think her loyalty card for a wom- en's dress shop will be of much use to me. So The Sidekick now has a trim little wallet, with areas set up and organized for her bank and credit cards, her discount cards for a number of things, and her ID cards, of course. Yup she's lookin' mighty trim as she now pulls out her new wallet. But mine, on the other hand, seems to be straining at the seams. I suddenly feel like I'm sitting on a brick… A Ted Bit Changing wallets for a woman can be an ordeal By Ted Brown tedbit@hotmail.com