The last earthly thing I remember was hitting the enter button-the perfect FICO score of 850 prancing on my desktop screen like an elusive unicorn, followed by the weightless feeling of falling backwards in my chair and the thud of the back of my head on the hard floor, followed by the seeping, pooling blood.

The first non-earthly thing I remember was that 850 shining on my screen fading into the distance as I floated up the tunnel of light. When I reached the end of the tunnel I was quickly ushered past the others.

“Welcome Steve, it’s an honor,” said the angel. The angel immediately stuck a machine printed rectangular sticker onto my lapel, it read in white type on a red background; “My Credit Score Is:” and underneath the text was a blank white space where the angel took out a black sharpie, uncapped it and with a flourish, a wide grin and a lot of panache wrote: 850.

The others, who I had been ushered past, broke into a round of applause, oohs and ahs, chants and whistles. They were genuinely happy for me. I was floating on a cloud, literally. After all this was Heaven.  

“Steve what do you want?” asked the angel. “What do I want?” I asked. The angel patiently replied, “Yes, what do you want? Or better yet what would you LOVE?  

I stammered a bit, actually more than a bit.  

“Steve, I can see you’re confused, naturally. I’m used to that reaction. Let me explain,” said the angel, who then went on to add, “Only one in a hundred score a perfect 850, more precisely only 1.2% but we’re rounding up, and you did it! And not only did you get to an 850 but you died with it, which is almost impossible!”

“You’ve earned anything and everything you desire. For years you’ve been obsessively paying your bills on time and maintaining low credit utilization. Like a master chef you’ve baked the perfect credit soufflé, like a maestro you’ve conducted the perfect credit symphony, like a hall of fame pitcher you’ve thrown the perfect credit game…I’ll stop I think you get it.”

“Well yes I suppose I have,” I replied, as it was all finally sinking in.  

“Yes you have” the angel jumped in adding, “So what will it be? A bevy of beauties? All you can eat-steak and lobster? A gold Maserati?”

Thinking for a very brief moment I asked, “Can I secure a mortgage at 2% below Prime?”

The angel replied “Hell yes! Of course, after all this is heaven”