My Brush With Banking Deregulation Infamy

Hey, look at me! I'm indirectly famous by virtue of being a bonafide IndyMac Bank customer! No, I'm not making that up!

I come back from Seattle and find out that the Feds took over my mortgage, and I'm a bit pissed that Greta Van Susteren or Anderson Cooper hasn't called me up for an interview or something. No, I have nowhere near $100,000 in an IndyMac bank (or to my name, for that matter), and I wasn't in one of those long lines on TV demanding my money.

I guess when you have a mortgage at a failed bank you don't go stand in line and demand the bank take your monthly mortgage payment. Instead, you get this irrational scenario in which you NEVER have to pay your mortgage now because the bank is out of business.

Unfortunately, that irrational thought has not proven to be true, AND Anderson Cooper hasn't even tried to interview me yet. Kind of a non-event, so far, from this angle.

And yes, I am a little envious of those ultra pissed-off people shown on TV waiting in long lines outside an IndyMac branch, but it's mainly because many of them have over $100,000 at a bank, whereas I'm lucky if my average balance gets over $250. What with my mortgage payments and all.

From the look of things, it appears many others may be joining me as members of failed financial institutions. But, for now, I have a level of vague celebrity (in my mind) I will cherish for as long as possible before Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the whole home lending market collapses into a large, steaming pile of 1932 all over again.

But I will have been among the first, and nobody can take that away from me. I'm still ready for that TV interview, by the way, just give me a call Anderson, Greta, Keith Olberman. Hell, I'll take Matt Lauer at this point. Like a flood victim along the Mississippi, this fame thing can't last forever.