fellonearth

Argh! I am cursed by the financial gods of credit. I just opened a letter from my credit card company (which shall remain anonymous) with the following opening:

It is never easy to bring unpleasant news to one of our valued customers. However, upon one of our periodic account reviews, we have determined that it is necessary to lower the credit limit on your Wells Fargo credit card account. Your new credit limit, listed above, is effective immediately.

Blah, blah, fucking blah! So after soiling myself upon finding my credit limit slashed to nearly a third it's total value, I finally gathered my wits and thought that there must be some kind of mistake... Well it took me a while to figure out why my credit rating had just taken a destructive hit akin to a full cannon broadside from a captured Spanish war galleon manned by bunch of scurvy pirates, lusting for blood and treasure...

A STUDENT LOAN

Ok, first, let me tell you that this loan is well over 10 years old. The funny thing is that I haven't been paying (nor have I been required to pay it) for quite some years now. My simple (and understandable) reason is that in some form or another I've been able to differ the loan at no interest because I've been enrolled in some form of education. It's really quite simple to defer, you simply enroll in a class and presto, the loan is instantly suspended in a hermetically sealed time capsule, with no paperwork required, in effect it ceases to exist... Well sort of.

Over the years I've moved around a bit, changed phone numbers, gotten a hair cut and even managed to pay off a 5 year loan for over $10,000. For some dumb reason, I thought I'd take a break from my 20 year plan towards earning some sort of "Renaissance Man" degree and instead try my hand at earning a little extra dough while I sort my life out a bit. Well, unknown to me, the spell of suspension on my loan had been broken when the evil demons of financial woe cracked the seals protecting it only to anger the slumbering god of credit. The heavens may have quaked and the earth may have split over over the credit god's wrath over my delinquency, but I heard no such rumblings. So upon the 100th day of my defaulted loan, I now realize the error and magnitude of my ignorance, only too late...

Yes, it was my fault, I should have called my lender and kept them up to date as to my whereabouts, my phone number, my dogs name, my shoe size and favorite color (blue, no wait, red... AAAAAH!). To be honest though, I didn't even think about it. Nope, I completely forgot that I owe some fucking computer account number in New Jersey or Texas some binary sequence of ones and zeros.

The amazing thing is that I find out (the hard way) that my credit from a completely different company is dramatically effected by an old student loan. Obviously financial institutions share their information about me with one another (so they can each have their turn in screwing me), but apparently I am completely out of the loop when it comes to this information. Why, on gods microchip-embedded earth, am I the last to know? You'd think after, say, the first 30 days, I'd get a notice from my credit card company stating that I'd defaulted on an unrelated loan so I won't get royally screwed in another 70 days. Good looking out for the customer Wells Fargo. Thanks a whole fucking lot. Stupid stage coach and horses. Now a days you've got to look out for a different type of bandit waiting to rip off your earnings. The funny thing is that they're really shooting themselves in the foot with this one. Now they can't expect me to make anymore charges and therefore earn more in interest from me. Bah! Credit, who needs it anyway?

Oh woe is me... Well I still have my health (but no health insurance)... I've still got my car (paid off now but ready to die soon)... Well I've still got a roof over my head (but I hopelessly live at home, yeah, as in the home I grew up in)... OK, so maybe I do need credit. From the looks of things, I'm pathetically close to disaster without it. I suppose I could always run off to Canada and hide, but then I'd just freeze my butt off... Mexico? Hmm, no they don't take any immigrants in Mexico and my Spanish is almost as bad as my Swahili...