Give Me Some Credit

By TAD BARTIMUS

When I die I'm taking my Sears card with me.

Sears said, "sign here" when I was 18 and short of cash while buying a set of sheets to take to college. They put their trust in me when no other company would. Owing Sears isn't the same as owing American Express, which initially denied me credit because I didn't have a husband, or Visa, which truly is everywhere and therefore the ultimate temptress.

Besides, owing Sears is a family tradition; if it didn't keep my grandparents and parents awake at night, why should it bother me? Growing up on a farm, we'd wait for the Sears catalog to get our necessities or pick out our Christmas gifts. Now, for $100 a month, year in, year out, I've got options when domestic disasters strike. Especially three days before Christmas.

That's when -- crammed with turkey, whipped cream, butter, fresh cranberries and pies -- my refrigerator croaked. It is moments like these that convince me God has a sense of humor. Just when my husband and I were feeling smug that we'd paid cash for nearly every gift and hadn't overextended our holiday budget for the first time in our married life, we came home to a flooded kitchen and a dead icebox. Pride goeth before a fall.

Goodbye pearl earrings, goodbye DVD player. Any wild last-minute thoughts of a holiday splurge went out the door with the spoiled turkey and all its trimmings tied up in a black garbage bag. In came a fridge that looks just like the old one, only cleaner ($1,300 won't even get you an icemaker these days). But I am grateful Starbuck's Java chip isn't running all over the linoleum with the Minute Maid anymore.

Sears may have given up some of its market share to Kmart and Wal-Mart, but, for me, it's still the place to turn for infrastructure: new tires when the old ones go bald, a television when the 12-year-old model gives up the ghost, pretty sheets and towels when the in-laws visit. It's a safety net, not an ensnaring spider web.

This is the time of year when credit card offers overflow the mailbox, outdoing each other with promises to "sign here" and end all your troubles. It amazes me to open an envelope and discover a $10,000 check with my name on it. It isn't real, of course -- oh, you can cash it, but it will cost you 14 percent interest for the rest of your life. I instantly tear up those come-ons, but a lot of people don't -- it's "nothing personal, just business" to sucker college kids and senior citizens into thinking more debt at high interest will lift them out of their financial hole. Scary.

Without a mortgage, I could never own a house. Without interest payments, I'd be driving a clunker dragging its tailpipe on the pavement. Without credit cards, where would I get, or be able to give, those treats that make one day more special than the others?

I am not a purist who believes that buying on time is bad, nor am I a credit abuser who flirts with bankruptcy while shopping at Bloomingdales. According to the Web site CardWeb.com, the average annual credit card debt per household hovers around $8,500. If I owed that much I wouldn't sleep at night. I do not buy diamonds, play the horses or take three-week cruises to Greece on money I not only don't have, but will never get. I'm just an ordinary middle class woman trying to make life a little safer and more genteel through the judicious use of plastic. But it's always a slippery slope; when is one mini vacation too many?

My grandmother used to say, "everything in moderation." This is not something we learn from our government, nor even from our parents. Knowing how much debt we're comfortable carrying is an individual lesson learned the hard way, by paying bills. 

My husband once wondered why I have extra life insurance. I told him it was to leave a little more comfort to the young folks in my will. But really, it's for Sears.

© 2002 The Women Syndicate

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