When I was a little girl, my Mama had a big cedar wardrobe that she kept locked. I can still see the little skeleton key. She locked it because it was full of things that delight a little girl's heart. Precious things that need protecting from little sticky hands.
Gorgeous dresses and hats and high heeled shoes all smelling of spicy sachet and cedar.
On the rare occasion that Mama needed to get something from that cedar wardrobe, she would sometimes let me try on the hats and clothes. As I look through the decades today, I can't think of a single thing in my childhood that made me happier.
Lace and sheer sleeves on the dresses. Buttons in all shapes and sizes. 1940s hats with veils and nets that came down over your face. Older elaborate hats from the 1920s. Big wide-brimmed Southern Belle hats that made me think of afternoon tea with cookies. High heels to die for. I'd clomp around the house all decked out in the finery, and Mama would laugh, but I didn't care. I loved playing dress up.
All my childhood I couldn't wait until I was big enough to really wear those clothes, but I never grew that big.
My Mama was 5'11" tall barefoot in her prime and she wore a size 11 narrow shoe. If she had been born in my time instead of hers, she could have been a fashion model. Tall and thin and beautiful with milky skin the envy of every woman who saw her and bright green eyes.
The last time I tried on her hats I was a teenager and finished growing. I knew then that I would never be able to wear her dresses or fill her shoes (in more ways than one). But the hats! I loved those hats!
It was in my 20s that I first wondered why Mama had so many beautiful things when she never wore them. There was nowhere to wear such things in Blacksburg, South Carolina. Most of the things were even too fancy for church.
One day in my 30s my Mama took a box out of her old cedar wardrobe that I'd never seen before. It was all the way full of cameos. Gorgeous cameos. Necklaces. Brooches. Pins. Beautiful. Mama asked me if I wanted some of them. I took two. I still have them, and I wear them often. They are beautiful and appear to be from the 1940s. I asked Mama where she got all those cameos, and she told me people used to give her things.
That is when I realized my Mama had a past I knew nothing about. I spent decades trying to get Mama to tell me stories about those dresses and hats and cameos. Where did she wear them? Was it a party? Who was she with? Mama would only ever smile and change the subject. Which means nothing, of course. Mama was a secretive thing. She loved her secrets and took them with her to her grave.
Still, sitting here today thinking about those hats, I wonder. Yes. I wonder. Today those old hats smell of adventure to me! Adventure and mystery, and I can't help but wonder whatever happened to them. I'm guessing they, too, took their secrets to their graves, but I think I will never know for sure. Not in this life.
1920s Cloche Hats
Equifax is what my Mama would have called "Full of Itself."
First they think it is okay to collect all our financial information without our permission and give us a "credit score" used to alter our lives, and now they think a slap on the wrist is good enough punishment for having allowed such information to be stolen.
Only ONE FREE YEAR of credit monitoring for endangering my credit for the rest of my life??? How is that a just and fair punishment???
This is not my first rodeo. The state of South Carolina already gave my information to hackers long ago. Because of that I always keep my credit frozen unless I am buying a house or car or applying for credit or something. I unfreeze it for that, then I freeze it again. Having said that, here's what I think:
I think signing up for the Equifax free year of credit monitoring is the only way to make them pay anything at all for letting hackers have my information. Since the hackers already have my info, I see no harm in entering it again to sign up for this service. Besides, my credit is frozen. So what do I have to lose by trying to get the free year? I've been trying and trying and trying.
Equifax sincerely does NOT want anyone to sign up for the free year of credit monitoring.
First you enter your information and they basically tell you, "Yes! I did allow your information to be stolen!" but they use less true words. Then they give you a date in the future when you have to come back to their site on that particular date to sign up again. YOU have to remember the date, site URL, etc. You will receive no reminder of any kind, and if you forget, tough luck. No free year of credit monitoring for you.
If you do set yourself a calendar alarm and go back to their site, you will enter even more of your information this time and then they will tell you that you will receive an email at some point in the future...maybe a week or more later...and the email might go in your spam folder so you have to be sure to look there everyday too. The email will have a link you can click to sign up.
I finally received the email about a week after signing up. The email comes from TrustedID and looks like SPAM. The Subject says: Update on your TrustedID Premier Product. You have to open the email to see the word Equifax, which is an image, so you also have to have images turned on in your email to see it. IF you do all that and believe the email is really from Equifax, you can use the link.
I clicked the link in the email and completed the information they wanted to know.
Yep. You guess it. Their website was not working. It also did not work the next day. I emailed them and got two form email responses saying a customer service person would contact me.
No. No customer service person ever contacted me.
After waiting several days I just then got the website to work; entered my information; answered a pile of personal questions and supposedly have been signed up for the free credit monitoring.
However, NOW their website tells me that my free account will take at least 48 hours to become active, and I will have to come back after two more days to see if they really did activate my free credit monitoring.
I bookmarked the site and will go back days later because I am stubborn. I have to remember the password I used, the site address, etc. but I will do it.
I expect to be less than impressed.
I think this runaround is a way for them to keep people from actually being able to sign up, or it is a way for them to frustrate people into NOT signing up and taking advantage of the free year of credit monitoring.
Most people are not as stubborn as me. Most people would not waste that much of their time and jump through all the hoops to get this service. I am not most people.
Equifax will do everything in its power to keep from having to pay one red cent in goods, services, or money for selling out millions of Americans, including me. They obviously feel entitled to be able to do this with no consequences.
Makes me so very angry.
They should be prosecuted. The executives should do jail time. At the very least, the company should have to pay each victim the amount of money they have made off their information without their permission over the years. The victims should be paid money for this. Money is the only thing these greedy corporate slime monsters understand. If we don't make an example of them, others will not invest their time and money to secure our information either. Equifax needs to pay.
That is what I think. It is time to put an end to corporate entitlement. We, the People, need justice.
If you had possession of my personal property and allowed someone to steal it, what do you think would happen to you?
