Don't believe what you hear about credit tightening up.

In our mail yesterday was a letter from Sears containing a new Gold MasterCard for my father-in-law and one for my mother-in-law. They have a credit limit of more than $9,000, and the cards are good until 2011.

Phil's dad died in 1980, and his mom died in 2003. Sears used our address because we handled my mother-in-law's paperwork at the end of her life.

Since I've been doing Dad's paperwork, we've been receiving junk mail for Mom—who died in Southern Nevada in 1979. Most of the mail is from Sears.