Well, I've just returned from the mortgage broker (see previous post). It was all right, without any huge surprises. One minor surprise, though, was that momentary shock of seeing my credit report for the first time. All of a sudden, I was looking down at all these details of my life, laid out in a fixed with font with indecipherable codes annotating my history. It actually gave me a slight case of vertigo.
Then, I realised just how little that report said about me. It doesn't mention my willingness to buy Scott Pilgrim books for my friends. It doesn't mention my tie-dyed lab coat in university. It doesn't mention my car's name. It doesn't mention the time I won a Hallowe'en costume contest.
It doesn't even have my real financial history. It doesn't say the most I've ever spent on a single comic ($70), how much I was once grifted out of at a motel in Calgary ($100), or the value of a toilet paper scam I once pulled in St. Albert ($600 - but I swear upon my life that it was for a good cause, no one got hurt, and there was no other way to do it). A credit report fails to reflect any of this, and the people who use them couldn't imagine why it should. There's something encouraging in that.
Moral: It's The Man's job to view you as a number. It's your job to make that number meaningless.
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