rivka

You know how credit card companies set up in public places, and offer you some sort of prize or giveaway if you'll fill out an application? And you get the prize even if later they turn you down for credit?

We went to an Orioles game Labor Day weekend, and they were doing that. Fill out an application, get a Cal Ripken bobblehead doll. I was entranced. I'm not the biggest Orioles fan, but it just seemed like I ought to have a bobblehead doll to put next to my beanie transgenic knockout mouse and my Queen Armadillo. So I filled out an application for an official Major League Baseball credit card.

I expected to be turned down, of course. We had money troubles last winter, and I missed a couple of credit card payments. We've been getting the kind of credit card offers in the mail that they give you if you have marginal credit: secured cards, cards with high interest rates, cards with big annual fees. I had in fact just been turned down for a new credit card at the National Zoo in June. (I wanted the panda T-shirt.)

But it arrived in the mail today. With a much lower interest rate and much higher credit limit than my current (and only) card. Bright red, with the MLB logo and the Atlanta Braves logo at the top. I'm irrationally delighted to see that, apparently, people trust me again. I can transfer my balance and cut up the old annoying card.

But you know, I just wanted the bobblehead doll.