A Personal Message from Citicards

A personal message to me from the CEO of Citicards:

	Dear Benjamin,
	I’ve always thought that the best way to show someone you are listening is to really deliver. That’s why we’ve been listening to customers like you, and making changes in response to your feedback.
	For example, you asked for a monthly statement that is easier to read and use.We listened. Over the next few months, you will see a new statement, with a simplified design and a standard paper size so it’s easier to file.
	You also asked for a more timely view into your spending. We heard you. Now, you can see your pending charges online, before they post to your statement.
	You can read more about improvements we’re putting into place at my blog. Please stop by so we can continue the conversation and make your experience with Citi even better.
	All the best, Jud Linville CEO, Citi Cards

My Response:

Dear Jud,
I don't freaking care about a new statement format. Lower my freaking rate or I'll just continue to NOT use your card. We taxpayers bailed out your company and yet you continue to fleece us with your excessive credit card rates. I simply won't carry a balance with you. Don't bother sending me your new and improved statement at all, since I guarantee it will always say $0 regardless of how exorbitant the rate you want me to pay.

Sincerely,
Benjamin Rice
customer since 2003

Ate, ate, ate-ey ate.

Every year on this date I am reminded of a particular moment in my life, one that maybe only seems profound to me now in that it is so memorable. It was the eighth of August, 1988 - 8/8/88. I was attending the Center for Talent Development (CTD) at Northwestern, now affectionately remembered as Nerd Camp, still a few weeks from my 14th birthday.

In this particular moment burned into my memory I am standing outside Scott Hall in this little triangle where Sheridan Road, Chicago Avenue, and University Place come together, across Sheridan from where the Northwestern Arch now stands. It's dark out so must have been after nine at night. It's raining and I'm unfolding a Tribune that I had bought to put over my head. There's an insert that is a special for the Cub's first night game at Wrigley. That's what makes the moment stand out to me - I remember thinking how clever it was for them to have the first night game on 8/8/88. I guess I can't think now why that would be so clever; maybe it's just because then it would be memorable to people like me.

I wanted to go to the game. A group of fellow campers did. I couldn't afford it. I had worked mowing lawns to help pay to be able to go to camp for the second year and spend three weeks outside of Chicago taking basically a high school AP algebra course. I think it must have been around the end of the session, because I know I was down to the last couple of the American Express travelers checks I had gotten with my dad at Wolverine Bank in Frankenmuth. I wanted to have some money left over for souvenirs for my little brothers, not to mention the Charleston Chew bars I'd get each day during break from class. So I passed on the game.

It was rained out anyway. I guess they got a few innings in, but the first official night game at Wrigley wasn't played until the next night. I remember those who did go to the game later describing how the players came out and used the tarp as a big slip-n-slide. In that one moment though with the rain and the paper and the cars going by on Sheridan I was giddy. I literally felt on top of the world. I remember thinking "My parents don't even know that I'm out here at night in the rain." I wanted to stay there. I loved Chicago, loved Evanston and Northwestern and my classmate-campers who were the coolest, smartest people I had ever met.

Everything changes and everything stays the same. There was another profound moment that I remember from that summer. One of the teachers at CTD gave a lecture on the relativity of time and multiple dimensions. Time being the "fourth dimension", as he described it, blew me away. I am now 24 years and 1000 miles removed from that moment in the rain. I have those moments of that summer, along with many others from CTD and millions of other moments including several others in the rain along Sheridan Road at Evanston over these 24 years. It would be sweet to taste just a bit of that feeling of being on top of the world again. You can't turn back the clock. There're lights at Wrigley now. It's for the better, they say, because now they have 28 night home games a year.