How much mail I get roughly every day ever since my identity was stolen. Sorry, trees.
- You get the opportunity to say “Yes, this is the real Joslyn Hamilton” a lot, which makes you feel vaguely super-hero-esque, or at least like you deserve a verified Twitter account.
- You get a good dose of phone-phobia exposure therapy while calling every single creditor on the face of the planet and pleading your case for up to three hours a day. (What job?)
- You have an excuse to suck on Xanax like it’s lozenges all day long.
- You’re gifted with a real Buddhist opportunity to get over your attachment to your credit score, which you have ruthlessly protected since you were eighteen and opened your very first credit card. Even through decades of debt, you have never once been late on a payment. Guess what? That was a lot of wasted minimum payments and energy. Thanks, Shiva!
- You learn everything there is to know about credit theft so that if it happens to any of your friends, you can give them step-by-step instructions on how to deal with it, since no one did that for you. Seriously, email me.
- You get to ask around and find out if any of your friends know a hit man. (They do, but they say he’s kind of sloppy. You’re weighing the pros and cons.)
- You get a glimpse of what your life would be like if you lived in rural agri-California and shopped at Kohls, JC Penney and Sears at the Sunrise Mall. And then you feel really glad you live on the coast and buy most of your clothes off Etsy.
- Doing your actual work becomes a productive way to procrastinate calling credit card companies and credit reporting agencies.
- You get assigned your own personal sheriff’s deputy whose personal number you can call at any time, and you take advantage of this because you live in a small town and he seems kind of bored.
- You relate to this Moth podcast: http://themoth.org/posts/stories/a-dish-best-served-cold.
Also, if you—the person who stole my identity—happen to read this, make no mistake, you’re dealing with a Virgo, and I’m only a half-assed Buddhist, and I will bring you down.
