A year ago, a couple of weeks after our mail was stolen from our roadside mailbox, I ran my credit report at the three agencies to see whether anything was amiss.

At that time, they were rolling out the website to support the Free Credit Report entitlement across the country starting on the West Coast, effective 9/1/05. My state already allowed a few annual credit report, one from each of the three agencies, but you should have seen how much trouble I had putting in my request. The web site kept saying that I was not eligible yet, thinking that I was applying under the new policy.

In some secluded corner of each of the report agencies' web sites, I found the by-state request links. I might have even resorted to requesting my report by telephone! I can't remember exactly. I mean, that's how impossible it was to do online.

Now, yesterday, I ran my reports and the whole thing took about 10 minutes, real time. Total elapsed time was probably 30 minutes because I live a life of interruptions.

And I thought about the evolution of requesting credit reports. There was a time when I made the request over the telephone, from my home number. Then, I was able to print out the request form from the agency's web site, include a photocopy of my driver's license, snail mail it in and receive a printed packet within ten days. Then I was able to submit the request online but still received the hardcopy via USPS. Yesterday, the request and the results were both fully online.

And, thankfully, everything is in order. It's really not anything that can be taken for granted anymore.