So.

I get an auto-reply phone message around noon on this Sunday from one of my credit providers to call them today.  I missed the call, called back, spent fifteen minutes on hold, and gave up.  I had a worst-case panic that my card had been canceled, but then thought that they were calling about the reservation I'd made at Motel 6 in Battle Creek, Michigan, where I've never been, as they've called about "abnormal" transactions in the past to ensure that no fraud had taken place.  I then went on about the business of packing more things and visiting family.

Then, I called back while Jen was getting a prescription refilled.


"Due to your high credit utilization and minimum payment history, we have reduced your line of credit."

By two-thirds.


Financial aid?  Sitting in a file on someone's desk in Toronto.

Financial flexibility that I was relying on - to eat, get a new suit to compliment the one decent one that I own, pay for ANYTHING?  Gone.  Credit score?  Takes a nice hit thanks to me not having worked since July 28th in the run-up to coordinating a move to, oh, just another country, where every single thing from mail forwarding to car insurance to health insurance to a cellphone plan is something that needs to be addressed.  By me.  And the credit takes a nice hit thanks to (probably) a harried temp worker hired by a massive financial conglomerate who's looking for signs of financial mismanagement before the new credit card laws take effect, when massive financial conglomerates won't have quite as much freedom to fuck their customers like they can now.  (I'm sure it was all done in the name of "fiscal prudence" and "shareholder value" and everything else tossed up onto CNBC, MSNBC, and the like.)


To think how much worse this could be if I had children and had already gone through the process of finding new schools for them in another country.  Or if I was selling a home and had nowhere else to go.  Or if I'd quit my job having been accepted to a school in March.  (Whoops, already went and did that.)


As it is, something will happen on Monday, and it had better fucking be good.  The movers are/were due to be here at 8am tomorrow, and they won't be loading a truck, that's for sure.


"Someday, we'll look back and laugh."  Maybe Ian was right.