I Am Just Now Getting A Credit Card
At 3am the other day, I successfully applied for and got a credit card for the first time. I am unsure how this affects my future. I am unsure as to what credit even is. My anxiety is supplemented only by the idea that this is something new and adventurous for me; it is as if I am about to have sex for the first time.
“I am thinking three things about you right now,” said a friend of mine after telling him in about it, “one, get fucked; two, oh my god, fuck you; and three, please, please, please do not get fucked over. All of those things are meant in a non-malicious way.” This was the best and only advice I have ever received about credit cards up to this point.
The mail comes and it is here. I have had a credit card in my possession for approximately seven minutes now. It is sitting in my apartment with various important documents and other material identifiers. I’m sitting in the opposite corner of the room and sort of glancing over at it. I consider the danger of putting it in my wallet with my debit card, two very different forms of payment, both equally dangerous. I feel transported back to the age of 13, picking up a rifle for the first time and firing it aimlessly in the woods. I am told that this moment is more important than that.
It is sitting on my dining room table. It has been a few days now. Anxiety is not consuming me; rather, I am feeling many positive things. I get points when I use it, allowing me to spend those points somewhere. Also, the card has an interest rate. Another positive is that I got to choose the color of the card. I hear that black cards are cool, but they did not offer it in black. I chose green. I might also be able to use this enough and one day buy a house, which seems okay.
I am thinking, ‘Holy shit, this is big. My student loans, oh my god. Rent, oh my god. Groceries, oh my god. Transit pass, oh my god. I don’t even own a car anymore, but gas, oh my god.’ Everything is now coming up credit card and this is frightening. This is the first time I am allowed to spend 500 dollars a month on whatever and then only pay a fraction of that off for the rest of my life. I think that is how it works.
It is a sort of dramatic moment, because this is something new. Everything new in life is a varying level of dramatic. I realize that I have overexerted the feelings I had about this moment. There is a harsh, painful shame in everything surrounding obtaining and reacting to this. Like everything pointless in life, I am anxious.
I am exclusively using this credit card for a $100-a-month transit card to go to and from work. I will then pay off my debt with my several part time jobs. I think I will let this card rest in the depths of my apartment alone until I understand what a credit score is. I will hide it when I am drunk, making credit more of a game than it already is.
This is what I assume living alone is like. This is so funny to me.