I Do No Wrong

What's the worst thing you've ever done? (Don't write about anything that could get you locked up like "One time me and my friends firebombed a TGI Friday's...."). If you've never done anything wrong you're either lying or you need to go do something like this.

This topic is quite difficult for me. I haven't committed any crimes. Well there was that time during my elementary school year when I stole a mechanical pencil for a store. All the other kids bragged about stealing shit, so I succumbed to peer pressure and indulged in minor criminal behavior. Thankfully, the criminal meme died in my adolescence preventing me from becoming another dead nigger statistic in my teenage and adult years(father and two uncles had major issues with the law in their youthful years). I suppose I should mention some digital piracy, but everyone is doing it and the authorities have their hands full chasing down real criminals with better payoffs than a geek downloading old jazz records and comic books.

The worst thing I have ever done as for as a major life screw up, was getting a credit card. A few weeks into my freshmen year at my previous college, this vulture representative from Discover Card called and urged me to accept their credit card. Since high school, I was staunchly against getting a credit card. It was pounded into my head that revolving credit was a form of bondage. Instead of exercising wise discretion, I succumbed to that consumerist pressure and accepted.

Months after receiving the card, everything was fine. Only used the card for emergencies and paid back in full any purchases I made. I am not quite sure where I became irresponsible in handling credit. From what I remember, it was college textbooks costs, new computers and video games that did me in. I worked at a toy store for during the first two years at my previous college and bought a new video game every Friday. I thought everything was under control, but shit was slowly crumbling. The interest rate and finance charges jumped. Discover Card kept increasing my limit which spurred me to charge more.

I’m still a tool of the credit card companies. There was a moment I was close to freeing myself from their clutches, but I had to charge a significant amount of money for a somewhat important task (nothing illegal or embarrassing, just very stupid) and now I’m back in the hole. Economic bondage sucks.