Somebody ran up all my credit cards

This is a very serious situation -- an identity theft nightmare to be exact.

I discovered recently that every single one of my credit cards has been maxxed out by someone who somehow gained access to all my accounts.

But it's even worse than that.

My Capital One Visa card, for instance, now has a balance of $6,543,322,482.87

Yes, that's right -- $6.5 billion.

I didn't realize I had that kind of credit limit.

Another Visa card shows a balance of $2.7 billion. And American Express is calling me twice a day wanting to know when I plan to send a check for the $3 billion charge on my Amex card.

Efforts to correct this horror story have thus far proven fruitless, but I did manage to find out what happened.

I noticed that all the charges were made by an entity called OWE with a phone number in Washington.

So I called the number and learned that OWE is a little-known federal agency -- the Office of War Expenses.

I talked to a very nice lady who explained that they were very sorry about the charges but they had no choice but to start charging everybody for the war in Iraq since the Chinese government refused to raise their credit limit.

"At first we just started adding a couple dollars a month to everyone's Visa bill. We figured no one would notice," she said. "But we still couldn't keep our heads above water."

"But," she added, "You'll be happy to know that your money will be put to good use because The Surge is working and not nearly as much is being diverted into the Swiss accounts of Iraqi politicians."

I protested that the charges on my credit cards were not nearly as high as this guy's:

She said she would look into that and put me on hold. Three hours later she came back on the line.

"I've been on hold for three fucking hours," I said.

"I'm sorry about that. Did you enjoy the hold music?" she said.

"It played 'I Fought the Law and the Law Won' over and over."

"Wasn't it nice?" she said. "It took so long because I had to phone a supervisor over at Langley. Your charges are higher because you belong to a subversive organization."

"Say what?!!??!!"

"Something called Costco," she said.

"Lady, I don't even shop at Wal-Mart," I said.

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's Kos," she said.

"Lady, that's called free speech. It's in the Constitution," I said.

"It might be speech," she said, "but it's no longer free. In fact, it doesn't even qualify for a favorable finance charge."

I then asked how they gained access to my account since I never authorized these absurd charges.

She said that the charges are allowed under a little known provision of the Keep America Free and Strong Act passed a couple years ago as Congress was trying to rush home for a recess.

"It's right after the section that allows us to tap your home equity, which we're doing next month by the way," she said.

I blew up at that point and started screaming that I do not support this fucking war, that I never voted for that shithead in the White House or his war criminal Veep and that I have no fucking intention of paying a fucking dime of these fucking charges.

"Why do you hate America?" she asked, her voice starting to lose its pleasantness. "Do you want the terrorists to win?"

"Of course not," I said.

I explained that even if I wanted to pay, I'm not Bill Gates and there was no way I had that kind of cash or ever would have that kind of cash.

"Oh, that's OK," she said. "The law allows the debt to be passed down to your grandchildren and their grandchildren -- but there will be a slight finance charge."