was say "yes."
"But I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," I pointed out. "Can't you just send me something in the mail?"
"No ma'am, this offer is only available now, bla de bla." And off he went again, explaining something that I had neither the
time nor the patience to deconstruct, while the pleasant task of . . . well . . . damning hucksters just like him swiftly
faded and I had to take a break. Go to my corner Starbucks. Order a no-whip, decaf, grande mocha latte with a shot of Thorazine.
Dream of escape.
Came home to find credit cards flinging themselves through my mail slot with offers of preapproved cards and extravagant compliments
about my special status as a recipient. A friend's four-year-old son was preapproved for one of these cards, which we thought
was interesting, given that all he would think to do was use the card as a diving board for his Rescue Heroes.
Essentially, these are cards that you would otherwise never think to apply for— because you're fine. Doing fine. But after
ignoring eighteen that come through the mail, you look at the nineteenth and start to think, Wow. Seven thousand dollars'
credit preapproved! Consider how much microwave popcorn, Primordiale Nuit lotion, and funerals you could buy!
Ah, what the hell. You get the card. The low interest rate strings you along for a while until it evaporates and you're laying
out roughly twelve times the bank rate in interest just to pay off new shoes. Hello quagmire of debt. Then, this is what credit
card companies do. They dog you with their weird pseudo-intimate inquiries when you find yourself a week past due. It's scary,
because this does not happen with the phone company or the furnace guys. They send you reminder notices in the mail, and then
eventually just threaten to cut you off. They don't pretend they care. And thus, they don't betray you in the way that credit
card companies do when you still fail to pay, for whatever reason, and the nicey-nice credit card people drop the temperature
in their voices to frigid and kneecap you with a baseball bat.
I know this, because in the space of six weeks, one memorable time, I moved houses and gave birth to a son, with the predictable
result that I entirely forgot about a rarely used credit card whose minimal billings no longer arrived at the correct address.
Busy as I was, swaying back and forth and back and forth to Bob Marley tunes as Geoffrey bawled in his Snugli, I was taken
off guard one day by a phone call from a "Mr. Hobbs." He left a number but no explanation as to why he had called.
Unlike Alba, who didn't give me her last name, Mr. Hobbs refused to give me his first name, when I got back to him, in a spirit
of perfect reversal. Alba was my friend. Mr. Hobbs was not. He informed me that I owed the full bill to this credit card company
immediately, and then he told me to phone him back when I had made payment. I took note, scrawled out a check, and then resumed
sleep deprivation and reggae staggering, planning to mail out a bunch of stuff on Friday. But, earth to new mother Patricia!
No, no, no! Once you are in Hobbsian hands, you cannot wait until Friday. What are you, a freak? Less than twenty-four hours elapsed between our initial conversation and the time that Mr. Hobbs felt
free to leave a message at Ambrose's office, pretending that he needed to reach me urgently and could not get through. At
the same time, he went after Doug.
Doug.
Doug was my neighbor, a morgue technician at a nearby hospital who spent hours in his garage at night listening to Aerosmith
and Led Zeppelin and tinkering with his proudly acquired second-hand Jaguar. Doug— he of the pale green scrubs— had a preternatural
George Hamilton tan, a receding hairline, and two boisterous blond sons who played road hockey in the alley. He also had a
wife— a lean, curly-haired woman named April who was constantly and tensely engaged in the weeding and
"But I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," I pointed out. "Can't you just send me something in the mail?"
"No ma'am, this offer is only available now, bla de bla." And off he went again, explaining something that I had neither the
time nor the patience to deconstruct, while the pleasant task of . . . well . . . damning hucksters just like him swiftly
faded and I had to take a break. Go to my corner Starbucks. Order a no-whip, decaf, grande mocha latte with a shot of Thorazine.
Dream of escape.
Came home to find credit cards flinging themselves through my mail slot with offers of preapproved cards and extravagant compliments
about my special status as a recipient. A friend's four-year-old son was preapproved for one of these cards, which we thought
was interesting, given that all he would think to do was use the card as a diving board for his Rescue Heroes.
Essentially, these are cards that you would otherwise never think to apply for— because you're fine. Doing fine. But after
ignoring eighteen that come through the mail, you look at the nineteenth and start to think, Wow. Seven thousand dollars'
credit preapproved! Consider how much microwave popcorn, Primordiale Nuit lotion, and funerals you could buy!
Ah, what the hell. You get the card. The low interest rate strings you along for a while until it evaporates and you're laying
out roughly twelve times the bank rate in interest just to pay off new shoes. Hello quagmire of debt. Then, this is what credit
card companies do. They dog you with their weird pseudo-intimate inquiries when you find yourself a week past due. It's scary,
because this does not happen with the phone company or the furnace guys. They send you reminder notices in the mail, and then
eventually just threaten to cut you off. They don't pretend they care. And thus, they don't betray you in the way that credit
card companies do when you still fail to pay, for whatever reason, and the nicey-nice credit card people drop the temperature
in their voices to frigid and kneecap you with a baseball bat.
I know this, because in the space of six weeks, one memorable time, I moved houses and gave birth to a son, with the predictable
result that I entirely forgot about a rarely used credit card whose minimal billings no longer arrived at the correct address.
Busy as I was, swaying back and forth and back and forth to Bob Marley tunes as Geoffrey bawled in his Snugli, I was taken
off guard one day by a phone call from a "Mr. Hobbs." He left a number but no explanation as to why he had called.
Unlike Alba, who didn't give me her last name, Mr. Hobbs refused to give me his first name, when I got back to him, in a spirit
of perfect reversal. Alba was my friend. Mr. Hobbs was not. He informed me that I owed the full bill to this credit card company
immediately, and then he told me to phone him back when I had made payment. I took note, scrawled out a check, and then resumed
sleep deprivation and reggae staggering, planning to mail out a bunch of stuff on Friday. But, earth to new mother Patricia!
No, no, no! Once you are in Hobbsian hands, you cannot wait until Friday. What are you, a freak? Less than twenty-four hours elapsed between our initial conversation and the time that Mr. Hobbs felt
free to leave a message at Ambrose's office, pretending that he needed to reach me urgently and could not get through. At
the same time, he went after Doug.
Doug.
Doug was my neighbor, a morgue technician at a nearby hospital who spent hours in his garage at night listening to Aerosmith
and Led Zeppelin and tinkering with his proudly acquired second-hand Jaguar. Doug— he of the pale green scrubs— had a preternatural
George Hamilton tan, a receding hairline, and two boisterous blond sons who played road hockey in the alley. He also had a
wife— a lean, curly-haired woman named April who was constantly and tensely engaged in the weeding and
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