News and notes from the weekend….
Seb has finally gotten around to be interested in crawling. He’s not getting up on his knees and travelling great distances, but he’s scooting around on his belly when the spirit moves him. The spirit, by the way, is typically some object he can’t have, such as the DVD remote, the telephone, or a set of technical specs for a work project. Oh, and the wood burning stove (which wasn’t burning). This sudden interest in motion comes at a cost though — we can’t leave him in the middle of the living room and expect him to stay put.
More Seb news. He’s finding his voice. Or should I say, scream. He enjoys yelling, especially in public places. He’s also developed this new set of “talking” noises reserved for when he’s thinking hard about something. They’re something of a cross between what sounds like Japanese and Cro-Magnon, spoken in a whisper.
Other news….
Fraud alerts are a wonderful thing if you’ve ever had a credit card stolen. Basically, it means that no one can easily open instant credit in your name. Including yourself. I wanted to purchase a new laptop this weekend, as I’ve been busy at work, and would be nice to work an hour or so at home a few nights a week to keep the workload manageable. So, seeing that Best Buy had interest free financing on laptops, I threw Seb on my back and headed there. I found a couple of nice laptops, then, knowing that I had a fraud alert out, I went to the customer service desk to apply for the credit before I started the sale.
I explained to the lady at the counter that I had said fraud alert, and that she would ultimately need to call Equifax about it. A few minutes later, she was on the phone with Equifax, and she then handed the phone to me. Now, I did get a credit card once before under the fraud alert, and basically Equifax asked if I knew why there was a fraud alert. When I explained the cicrumstances, they said okay and thanks, and BAM! I had credit.
This time, however, the person on the other end of the phone asked if he could contact me at one of two numbers listed on the alert. Ummm….no, since the alert went out nearly five years ago, and that was three residences and too many jobs to count ago. Sorry, he said, but he’s send me information to update that information. Gee, great. I bet that’ll go to the Walnut Street address, so I’ll never actually see it. Just like that, I couldn’t get a Best Buy credit card. That’s right — credit denied. I just got approved for a mortgage, but I couldn’t get a credit card for a purchase that was one-tenth of the mortgage.
By the way, there’s nothing quite like walking out of a retail store having been denied credit…..
Posted on 1 March 2004