(credit) card tricks

one of the first things i remember hearing about when i came to the US was 'credit history'. apparently, from when you get a Social Security number, every transaction you ever participate in which has a written record goes into your file. so for those of you buying porn using your credit cards, don't think the Government (aka your girlfriend) won't know you have a subscription to 'Big Boobs Weekly' just because it arrives packaged in brown paper. i hear the magazine can't make up their mind if they want Lindsay Lohan in it, or not, or in it, or not..

anyways, getting back to the point, basically what happens is that every dealing you make, paying bills, buying groceries, bidding on ebay, buying weed, booze and cigs, health insurance, rent.. everything with records in one of your bank accounts is in your credit history, so that when you apply for a loan or a mortgage, the money-lenders decide whether they want one pound of flesh (or more) to go with its repayment, and whether it should be be from the rump steak region or from the spare ribs area.

most graduate students lived in poverty throughout undergrad - just that it never seemed that bad then. i would SMS my dad this:
me: "no mon, no fun, your son."
hoping that he would catch my drift and cash would soon be on the way. without missing a beat, he replied:
dad: "too bad, so sad, your dad."
where other feeble-hearted kids would give up, my thirst for knowledge (actually, whiskey) would lead me to mailing mom:
me: "hi ma! i was looking to apply to some grad schools in my specialization. they told me that they were very impressed with my qualifications, and i just needed to go through the preliminary application process, and i was a shoo-in for a scholarship."
the next time the brown-suited postman came around room C-313, he would be a messenger bearing good tidings in the form of a cheque which got promptly converted to a more eatable and drinkable form.

so a lot of us were duped into going to grad school, with visions of milk & honey for some, and chicken wings & beer for others. however i find that life at the grad level is a delicate balance of credit limits and 13.5% APR, the latter number being the interest to be paid on the credit card. smarter folks have learned an advanced form of the 3-card poker (aka 5-card stud), with credit cards though, whereby you keep transferring and juggling balances throughout the three, interspersed with calls to the Help Desk for an increase in credit limit.

these calls to the Help Desk are a lot of fun, as mostly they are routed to Bangalore, India.. and a very nice feminine voice answers: "hi, thank you for calling **** (bank's name withheld to protect my credit rating), this is May speaking, how may i help you?" at this point i am wondering if her real name is Malika, or Mayuri, or Mahima.. and whether she is breathing heavily into the phone because she likes my voice, or hmm.. !! but usually her name turns out to be Manjula or Madhushri or Mandodari, and she is as willing to increase my credit limit as she is to meeting me for coffee the next time i'm in bangalore. damn.

now you know why i am so desperately looking for a job when i finish, and not because i am looking for "a field where maximum utilization can be made of my academic training and research skills" (verbatim from my resume), but because i am nearing the credit limits on the cards, and the price of alcohol is increasing all the time, as if the stuff was distilled from crude oil, the cost of which strangely refuses to obey Newton's law of gravity and come down.