life and puppies

I’m fighting really hard not to let this current economic situation get me down.  As many of you have heard, we are being threatened with serious layoffs at the agency at which I work.  This really isn’t any fun and it’s mostly a boatload of stress.  Of course, the situation is compounded as I am a member of our seven-member Board of Directors that represents Wisconsin State agency attorneys.  So, I am fielding emails, phone calls and in-person visits trying to answer seemingly unanswerable questions.  It is also compounded by the fact that despite my four and a half year tenure at the DOJ, I am still relatively low on the totem poll, meaning I’m high on the chopping clock.  Anyway, I’m trying to let this stress go this weekend, but I can feel that it’s still weighing heavy on me.  I want to do my job and enjoy summer without wondering how long I’ll be able to pay my mortgage.  I know that I’m not alone in this, but that only makes it sadder.

In any event, I have a question.  In addition to being supremely annoying, I find the Free Credit Report Dot Com commercials totally perplexing.  I’ve been struggling about whether to address this on my blog for some time — mostly because I don’t want to write the words that form the acronym FCRDC because the irritating song immediately gets in my head when those words are referenced.  Anyway, I suppose now is the time to share my confusion.  As I remember things, the first ad on this subject with the rumored French-Canadian curly-haired fellow was the one in which he sung his damn song while his young wife walked around with a laundry basket.  He lamented their marriage because she had defaulted on a credit card, making it impossible for them to live anywhere but her parents’ basement.  He also basically indicated that if he had known her credit score, he would not have married her.  So, this ad is pretty offensive and unrealistic (they can’t find an apartment?), but at least it makes some sense: her credit score meant they couldn’t get their dream home.  Fine.  But then the next two that I remember leave me completely baffled.  The first is the one in which the guy is a host — with a guitar — at a pirate-themed restaurant.  I’m totally unclear on why not checking your credit report would make it so that you had to be a host at a theme restaurant.  I mean, did he lose his great job when his boss found out his credit score was whack?  Or did someone steal his identity and run up a bunch of debt and now he has to walk the plank?  I don’t get it.  The same goes for the next one, which is the infamous Renaissance Faire assault on the eyes and ears.  Not checking your credit report now means you have to play crappy music in tights at a Renaissance Faire at which goats are walking around.  What? 

Though I suppose the thought of that did scare me enough that I checked my credit report the other day.