Credit cards.

Credit cards. I have one, you have one, I'm sure even credit cards have credit cards.

"How would you like to pay?"

"I am payment!"

"Sorry, sir, I'll need something that isn't your person."

These days, to not have a credit card is to live in the woods. I'm sure you can't even live there without one!

"Yep, I sleep in a tree and hunt for my food. But the river won't allow me to fish unless I give them my card number. I don't know who programmed this river, but I'm not going against it."

Credit cards have made it so that you can't buy anything with cash anymore. Not at all! People used to be able to buy things with cash. Credit card companies, though, have made it so you NEED them to do anything. You want an apartment? You need credit. You want a car? You need credit.

"But I have money!"

"Well, is that money invisible?"

"No, of course not. It's right here!"

"Ah, see. That's the problem. It has to be invisible. Sorry, sir! You can sleep on your actual money in the street, though."

Credit card companies do not care about people at all. Credit cards are given out to poor people in poor grocery stores. How could companies be so heartless!?

"Do you want a credit card?"

"Credit card?! My cart is full of Mr. Noodles! What the hell am I gonna do with a credit card? I'm in twenty thousand dollars worth of debt!"

"...If you sign up for one, I'll give you some cookies?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa – cookies! Chocolate chunk?! What debt? I'm in!"

Every time I see one of those guys standing behind a little podium saying, "Want to sign up for a credit card? Right now! You don't even need credit. None! No credit!", I want to karate kick him in the head. You don't have any money either?! What the hell are we doing here?

"Sign up for something that messed up your whole life! But this one doesn't care that your whole life is messed up!"

These guys are at the airport, too! Who in the world needs to sign up for a credit card while catching a connecting flight to Cleveland?

"Sir! Would you like to sign up for a credit card?"

"Well, I obviously already have one. You can't book a flight without it. If I didn't have one I wouldn't be in this terminal with you. And I have to catch a flight in half an hour or I'll be stuck in this airport for six hours, have to use the credit card I already have to book another flight, which will cost a ton because they know I'm screwed – but why not! I don't have all of those holders in my wallet full yet!"

Credit card commercials are amazing as well. They could just say, "Hey, if you don't have one of our cards or someone else’s cards, you won't be able to even leave your house!" Nope, they don't do that. They try to have funny commercials. FUNNY COMMERCIALS. For CREDIT CARDS!

"Hey, what's that?"

"Oh, that? It's a space shuttle I bought on this Pay Now, Cry Later credit card."

"Space shuttle? Are you qualified to fly that thing?"

"No, but the hot Russian space lady that came with it is!"

"Я унес бы Вас обоих, но я только имею один рот."

"Pay Now, Cry Later credit cards. Why cry now and pay later?"

They'll give a credit card to someone who is eighteen who doesn't even have a job, or someone in their twenties or thirties who has had one before and still owes money. But if you never have had one, and paid cash for everything in your life, when you’re forty you can't get one! They won't give you one when you can pay it off!

"I'm sorry, sir, you don't have any credit."

"I know. That's what I'm trying to get the card for."

"Ah, I see. Well, is there a way you could prove you’re bad with money? Could we contact a friend with whom you still owe something to?"

"No. I've been good with all of my bills and everything. Doesn't that make me eligible?"

"...What? Sorry, I stopped paying attention when you said you've been good with your bills. Want to take a mint and get out?"

Credit card companies get other people to collect for them as well. They don't even call you themselves! They get other people who are in debt to call people who are in debt to collect. 

"Thanks for coming in for the interview today. How much debt are you in?"

"Me? Jesus, lots."

"Perfect! Then you'll be fine working for thirteen dollars an hour and working fifty hours a week! Start with this list."

"This one has me on it!"

"Yes, it does. Call yourself and talk yourself into paying us back. If you work sixty hours a week and disconnect from your family, we'll cut your debt by ten percent."

"Sweet! When do I start?"

"Right now. Work until Thursday."

That would be the worst job on the planet. Only thing worse would be ditch digging on the side.

"Which job do you have today?"

"In the morning I have to call people and try to dig money out of them. In the afternoon I have to stand beside a highway and dig a hole in the earth."

"...I envy nothing about you."

Can credit card companies just say what they are? Can't they? Credit card companies are the same as loan sharks. The only difference is you never meet anyone who actually works at the credit card company. You don't have to talk to anyone there to get money. You have to meet a loan shark to get money from him.

"Hello, I'd like to borrow five thousand dollars."

"No problem. Here it is. I need you to return it in two weeks, with an extra three thousand for me being so generous. Also, if you don't return the money plus interest, I'll kill your entire family."

"...Okay...nice to meet you."

"You, too! Have a good day and tell your friends! 

Why must they charge you so much? I have a credit card that has a nineteen percent interest rate. Nineteen percent! I know you guys need to make money, but nineteen percent interest? We both need each other. I need you or I won't be able to buy a couch ever in my life, and you need people like me or you will not have enough money to still be able to buy couches, light them on fire and throw them at poor people.

"There's another poor person!"

"Nice! Throw the La-Z-Boy! Wait, put it on the street so he can sit in it, and when he brings the foot rest up, then we'll set it on fire!"

"You know, we could just raise their interest rates to twenty one percent. We don't necessarily need to light them on.."

"YOU'RE FIRED!"

Credit cards are so serious that you can go to jail for lying to get a credit card. Jail! If you lied to get a Blockbuster card when it was around, nothing happened. You just rented "Sudden Death" that night.

"They asked me if I owed any money. I told ‘em no! Hello, Jean Claude Van Damme!"

You lie on a credit card application? You could end up beside a guy who boiled a kid in an old fridge.

"What are you in for?"

"Ah man, I fibbed on a credit card application. You?"

"Same! Except I kidnapped a seven-year-old, put him in an old fridge I found on the side of the road, and poured hot caramel on him until he was a kid caramel kid apple."

"...I don't think I should be here with you."

"You! I shouldn't be anywhere. I'm crazy!"