Last week we looked at a house we loved in a great neighborhood with a great school, a few blocks from Lila's best friend.

And the landlord loved us. Told us we were her first choice, she just needed to do a quick credit check and get back to us. Then she fell right of the edge of the Earth. Stopped returning Sam's calls.

I knew she got the scores and decided to hold out for a situation where both the applicants AND there Equifax report were equally loveable. Five days later when I emailed to check-in, I got this response:

I'm so sorry Elaina but your credit reports came back with scores that were quite low and our financial guy recommended we not go in that direction. Simultaneously, another interested party decided that they also wanted the house. We ran their credit the next day and it was acceptable. We are wraping (sic) up the deal with them. As you know these things can fall apart at the last minute. If it does fall through, I will talk to my business partner about the idea of working together to see if we can figure out a way to make it work. Perhaps some way that you would pay a higher deposit or something.

Good luck to you and I must say that I also really enjoyed our interactions.

Regards, ....

I must say I wish she'd enjoyed our interactions enough to figure out a way make it work before wrapping up the deal with the applicants who came after us. Or at least enough to call back and say it wasn't working.

I get that rental houses are financial investments and have little to do with humanitarianism. The frustrating thing is we have excellent rental histories, both together and separately, And, irony of ironies, my credit sucks because paying rent on time is always top priority.

I understand why Visa won't come within 10 miles of me, but if I'm paying the rent on time every month, like I do, I don't understand why my relationship with Visa or Old Navy should be any of the landlord's beeswax.

It's so depressing and terrifying to live in a society where worth is more often calculated by finances than by actual human character and the human fated determined by Equifax.

Nothing personal, we really like you, it's just business.