Credit rant

This morning, I saw a bill for my MasterCard® socking me with a late fee for having an overdue account. I was pissed. I don't get monthly bills for that card, only when I have a charge, and I hadn't used the card since early August. I had never received a bill for this charge--had no way of knowing that I hadn't received a bill for this charge--and now I had to make myself late for work explaining this to some underpaid undertrained moron in another state.

It turned out both better and worse than I had expected: They readily promised to cancel the late fee and the interest. The charge was my annual fee. I'm now able to get cards without one, so I told them I intended to cancel this account. The woman said she had to send me to a "specialist". Turns out, her "specialty" is reading some printed disclaimer. I was caught off-guard. With my previous card, the "speciallist" pleaded with me not to cancel and eventually waived the fee. I expected a similar opportunity here--that's why I didn't cancel the account earlier. I had planned to wait for the bill for the annual fee, call them, and negotiate. Now I have to pay an annual fee on a card that's no longer active.

I hate credit. It's a game with confusing rules that I never learned. I don't like playing it and, what's more, I suck at it. But I'm forced to if I want anything more than a rudimentary existence. My father boasts about how good he is at managing his credit, maintaining an excellent rating even during prolonged periods of insolvency. Bully for him--but what did he ever teach his children about handling credit? Diddly.

My mother is hopeless when it comes to credit--or finances in general. One weekend not too long ago, I visited her to help put her house in order. Sorting through the hummock of accumulated mail, I was appalled at the number of unpaid bills and threatening notices. Since Mom was the only one doing much parenting when I was younger, I was brought up so naive that I arrived at college with travellers' checks and didn't get a card because I didn't need one. No one told me they fling cards at you when you're an undergraduate and then they totally dry up when you actually have a job and can afford to buy things.

So I ended up a young adult with no credit rating (having diligently paid off my student loans ahead of time--no one told me this good behaviour dropped off your credit report after a number of years). When I finally decided I needed a card for practical purposes like making reservations and online purchases, I was subjected to a humiliating series of rejected applications. This was a few years back when desperate companies were absolute showering new applications upon customers already buried in debt and here was I, someone with a good income and no credit problems to speak of, and I couldn't even get a fucking department store card. Fortunately, I was spared with incredible indignity of getting a secured card and therefore lending money to myself. But I couldn't do any better than having to pay exorbitant application fees an other usurious charges.

The MasterCard® was the last relic of that dark era, and good riddance. At least I hope it is. One of the reason's I've been dragging my feet on getting pre-approved for a mortgage so I can start house-hunting in earnest is that I'm paranoid the bank is going to find some stupid thing in my credit history that I knew nothing about, but is a total red flag to them, and put me through the goddamn wringer.

Credit where credit is due, however: Many thanks to Nuphy and Monshu for holding my hand through this. They've both mastered the game and have their own tales of woe--especially Monshu, who came out of the Society with no assets and no credit history. He had an ugly odyssey, culiminating in a year-long search for an apartment he could actually finance. (Nuphy had his own problems due to a rapacious ex-wife.) The fiscal responsibility and incredible generosity of my grandparents puts me in a much better position when it comes to financing my own place.

Let's hope I don't screw it up

Exciting imaginative contest!

In order to console myself on the destruction of my favourite jacket, I've decided to open a contest for Most Entertaining Explanation of how the mysterious damage occurred. Following the example of welcomerain, I'm offering prizes. Since I'm no graphic artist, first prize will be a fascinating and appropriate ethnic name in the language of your choice.

The Facts: Shortly after 5 p.m. last night, I boarded the southbound Express train. I took a seat facing against the direction of travel and laid my right arm on the sill of the adjoining window. It was then that I noticed two pairs of small holes, each large enough to poke a finger through, along either side of the seam on the underside of the right sleeve. Each pair is separated by about eight centimetres; the pairs are slightly staggered relative to each other. The most forward hole is almost at the seam where the sleeve meets the wrist and its staggered counterpart on the opposite side of the sleeve seam is 2 cm. from the wrist seam.

The Story: [?]

Strangers with cake

Every year, I play St. Nicholas for my hard-working employees. Last night, I went to the Christkindlmarkt at Daley Plaza for supplies. I love it there: All my favourite imported holiday treats (at least the Mitteleuropäischen ones) and I get to order them in German! Plus, there are the steaming savories whose appeal escapes rollick, though the prices might at least strike her as reasonable.

I think the language might have influenced the decision of the Plauener running one of the little Bambes-Hütten to give me an extra portion of Kassler Rippchen. "My boss is killink me," he said, "aber iss egal." I would've ordered Bambes there, too, but I'd already sampled those at another stand with an overly generous side of applesauce ("Nicht die Hälfte!" the worker who had poured it was chided). A woman from one of the stands in the row facing the full might of the winter wind tried hard to sell me on some other sweets after I made it clear I was interested only in the Elisenlebkuchen she didn't have; I returned to the "Sweets-Castle" near the State Street entrance to buy them.

There, they also had Kinderüberraschungseier, which have only recently begun to appear in this country. They've been available throughout Europe for years, but the FDA wouldn't approve their sale in the USA because of the small toys inside them. At least, that's the story I heard from a vendor at the Markt several years ago who had smuggled in a clutch. "The stupid Amis," he began, oblivious to the fact that I was one of them.

Laden with a half-dozen of these, plus marzipan pigs and chocolate chimney sweeps, I made my way to Rokucha. There I broke out the chocolate-covered brandied cherries for My Chef and the Lebkuchen for myself. They let me munch away without any intention of ordering their food and poured me cup after cup of tea (which they forgot to charge me for) as I did so. A multiethnic trio to my left was celebrating a birthday. Just about the time I was offering the Thai woman one of my cookies, the staff brought out an oreo cake from the Swedish Bakery that she and he Korean boyfriend had procured for their Caucasian buddy. She took the Lebkuchen anyway, and they gave me a fat piece of cake in return. So fat, I couldn't finish it--not after wolfing down 100 gm. of spiced German confection.

For form's sake, I didn't give up nibbling at it until after they had left. Then I left half the package of cherries with My Chef and waddled back home. I woke up early, but--because of that idiotic credit hassle--didn't get into the office before my employees. I had to wait until two were on break to dash around and ornament their desks. In return, the German-speaking one brought a copy of Sankt Nikolaus in Not, a short story I'd never heard of but which she swears is a component of German cultural literacy despite its Flemish origins. I'll probably start on it tonight and save The physics of Christmas for my flight to STL.

HA_GMA_

Further investigation is revealing more consistency.

Scandivanian

• Norwegian, Danish: bøddel
• Swedish: bödel

Slavic

• Russian: palach
• Polish, Czech: kat

Celtic

• Irish: crochadóir
• Scots-Gaelic: crochadair
• Welsh: crogwr

The Scandinavian terms bear a suspicious resemblance to Dutch beul. (These words all have the same vowel--German ö--though they spell it differently.) I'm now curious to see whether there's a cognate in Low German. The Russian isn't related to the West Slavic terms, but it's striking that Czech and Polish agree when such equally close kin as Spanish and Portuguese don't. The Celtic terms all have the same etymology: Agent nouns of the verb "to hang" (ultimately derived from Latin crucis "cross"). But I do find it interesting that there are no parallel etymologies in Romance or English.

Hungarian, however, has the mysterious hóhér. I can't derive it from any Hungarian roots and there's no obvious source for it if it is, in fact, a borrowing.

(Incidentally, I think palach (accent on the final syllable) is a fine name for a command chair. Etymologically, it might mean "he who burns" or (like Spanish verdugo) be related to a word for "stick").