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# Fearing a blast from the past
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/fearing-a-blast-from-the-past/
- Published: 2008-04-17T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:54:02.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By E-mail questions or comments to meredithccar-*

THE FINANCIAL ADVISOR HELPING ME fill out my life insurance application last week asked as a matter of course if I’d been convicted of any traffic violations in the past five years. Naturally I lied and said no, but then I worried the life insurance people might have a way of knowing things. Kind of like a Magic 8 Ball.

I wondered if it was possible that the speeding ticket I got a year and a half ago might have possibly been noted on my permanent record, which lurks out there in a special part of the universe to which only people who know or need to know the bad things are granted access. So I erred on the side of caution, stopped anything false from being written and copped to the ticket, having learned long ago (the hard way, of course) that it’s way better to admit guilt before being accused of it.

My fear of the permanent record started in the eighth grade when Alyssa Marks asked if she could copy my homework for Mrs. Repa’s social studies class. I hesitated to let her do it, not so much because I was staking my flag in a chunk of moral high ground, but because social studies was one of my weaker subjects. Still, that didn’t deter Alyssa, who shrugged off any quality concerns and copied from me with wild abandon.

Mrs. Repa passed back the homework the following afternoon and I was disappointed, although not entirely shocked, to see a grade of 55 at the top of the page. My curiosity was piqued, however, when I saw next to the grade a note requesting my presence after class. Not surprisingly, Alyssa received the same grade, as well as the same invitation.

“Cheaters!” Mrs. Repa hollered, piercing us with her icy blue eyes as she closed the door behind the last student after the bell rang.“I’m going to keep tabs on both of you when you go to high school next year. If either of you ever pulls something like this again, you can bet this will show up on your permanent record,” she growled.

I knew then that my life was pretty much over. I knew Mrs. Repa wouldn’t really wait for the next incident. She’d be proactive and mark the crime on my permanent record right away, despite my promises to rehabilitate my cheating ways. My high school teachers would all find out. They’d pass it on to the college admissions people, who would tell my professors, who would ensure I’d never graduate and become a grown-up who was allowed to have a phone in her room.

I started fantasizing ways I could be like Superman and reverse the orbit of the Earth so I could turn back time and just tell Alyssa no to copy. When that seemed difficult to coordinate, I dreamed of ways to sneak into the school office,snatch my sullied permanent record and replace it with a virginal version. Which was worse — a black mark on my permanent record or a stint in the can for breaking and entering? It was a tough call.

But the reality is, a mystical piece of paper floating around in an elusive dusty file cabinet is no longer the threat it once was (although prison still is). Not in the age of YouTube, My Space and Facebook when people are their own worst offenders when it comes to putting damaging information out there for the world to see.

Fortunately, after much thought, I think I can now safely say that my dad likely has the only remaining copy of my permanent record. I know this because while he can’t remember the name of the movie he saw an hour ago, he can rattle off my offenses, in order, from the moment of my birth to the present. So barring any nude photos of me taken by a neighbor with a long lens and a Web site, I think I’ve escaped the perils of anything more permanent coming back to haunt me on the Internet or anywhere else.

Yes, I take some comfort in assuming the life insurance people might actually not talk to the brass at the DMV who no longer chat with the health insurance folks who stopped corresponding with the credit card underlings who brunch alone instead of with the guys at the bank who do happy hour amongst themselves rather than with the dudes at the credit bureaus who have long since erased the cops from their speed dials. They no longer need to hold quarterly conventions with “Hello My Name Is” stickers on their sweater vests and Xerox each other’s notes on everyone’s permanent record. They just use Google.

Finally, Mrs. Repa has met her match. Best of luck, Google.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 17, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/041708.pdf?ref=smdp.com)