Search
What are you looking for?
No More Codes, Please
When I was born, I had a social security number and nothing more.
But as I grew and matured (which is questionable) I was saddled with a phone number, an address, a locker combination, an ATM code, an alarm system security password, a credit-card PIN-number, a secret four-star Sunset boulevard dance club secret word, a million website passwords and usernames and a keyless entry automobile number.
Last night, I forgot all of them.
Don’t get me wrong — I understand the need for security in this day and age. I understand that at any given moment there are a thousand hack3rs attempting to steal my information. There is identity theft running amok and credit card numbers being swiped by the minute and SIM cards being hacked into and so on and so on…
But can’t I just have one code? To make it easier on me?
I have enough trouble remembering a phone number when I’m on with information. And if I can’t do that, how do you expect me to remember which code to use in which situation at what time during which month with or without daylight savings? Last night was a perfect example when my home alarm system (which is extremely well-fortified for all those wannabe stalkers) went off and I got the call from the alarm system home office:
Them: “This is the alarm company. Is everything OK?”
Me: “Everything’s okay. False alarm.”
Them: “Passcode please.”
Me: “Housefly.”
Them: “Uh, no.”
Me: “6990134?”
Them: “No, sir.”
Me: “The eagle has landed.”
Them: “Maybe, but that’s not your pass code, sir. If you can’t give me the correct pass code I’m going to have to alert the authorities.”
Me: “Uh. Um. Kajagoogoo? Yes. KAJAGOOGOO.”
Them: “Sir.”
Yes, after about sixteen tries, I was able to reach back into my ever-evolving and rotting brain and collect the correct code combination of letters and numbers that was necessary in keeping the local authorities from busting into my house and arresting me for, uh, basically not remembering my secret code.
Can’t we all just have one? Per person? Single digit codes?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All you number and math freaks out there immediately jumped on that one and thought to yourself how easy it would be to figure out someone’s code. I get that. But I’m not Good Will Hunting. I’m not the guy who has to think up the solution here. I’m just the guy who complains about the problem.
And that problem will continue to get bigger as I get older.
Doesn’t it seem to make sense that if as we get older our mental facilities decline…that we shouldn’t be adding even more codes to our brains as such an event progresses? Shouldn’t we be given a million codes when we pop out of the womb and then only have one in the end? And, doesn’t that sort of make sense since most people pretty much die penniless and without any liquid assets at all? Isn’t that the point in life when a single-digit code for everything would make sense since there’d be nothing anyone would want to steal?
When I look around my grandparents house in Vegas, there’s nothing I’d want to take (except for maybe that box of sugar free candies that have been sitting in that dish on that table since 1978).
So, maybe that’s the solution. The older we get, the more we consolidate our codes, the easier they are to remember, and it all works out since no one wants to steal old people’s crap. That way, at least, I would feel confident in knowing that although it may be tough right now for me to remember the code to open up that medicine bottle (there’s a code, right?) or the complicated combination on my secret lock box or the verbal code I must give you after you’ve pinned me in a wrestling match or whether to cut the red wire on three or after three that things would definitely get easier for me in the end.
And with that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to announce that I would like my single-digit, easy-to-remember code for absolutely everything in my life to be… 9.
9. I like it. I think I can remember that. Wait a second. Was it 9 or 5? 5 sounds like 9. Sort of.
See? It’s hopeless.
I wonder if you can also change your SSN to 9, so you’d kind of be like one of the mysterious Men in Black. Except you don’t wear a suit and strange sunglasses all the time. And you don’t have one of those flashy-things.
Funny post. I have to keep a document in Word with all of my user names and passwords to various sites. Then of course I have to have an odd name to access the document so it’s not obvious what’s in the document. Not only do I not remember the user names/passwords but can’t remember the name of the Word document to find them. It’s hopeless.
I want my number to be 8675309. Why does that sound familiar?
think about it paul: i think this only gets better as you age.
as a student, you know you have craploads of numbers to remember. then, as an adult (what are you? middle aged?) you hit your plateau.
aging is reverting back to childhood.
bank account? what bank account? my money is either under my mattress (because you’re now an old man and that’s just what you do) or with my attorney (you know, for when it’s time to die.)
alarm password? not when you’re living at a retirement home!
website? please. it’s so high-tech these days that only the young whippersnappers can get it to work. you have trouble just setting your atomic clock.
VIP dance club….?
you get the picture. it’s downhill from here.
I also have a word document with all my passwords on it, cleverly tiled “passwords” so that anyone looking for my passwords would assume that there could be no way I’d be so stupid as to name my passwords file “passwords”. I was going somewhere with that but now can’t remember and so I’ll settle for saying “passwords” over and over again, since judging from the previous sentence, I really enjoy that word.
only slightly related…
I remember when I was a kid, I lived in a rural town, and when you made a phone call, you only had to dial the LAST FOUR DIGITS.
no area code, no prefix, just the last 4 numbers.
42. That’s the answer to everything. Or maybe it was 867-5309. Damn. I can never remember.
19-15 20-18-22-5, 16-121-12-25. 19-15 20-18-22-5.
Jerry – How did you get my address, the code to my safe deposit box, my password for the Wall Street Journal online, my address (again) and my home network Wi-Fi pass?
Just keep all your codes on a card in your wallet but label them wrong like – list: Bank code = actual code for your house. Mother’s maiden name = bank code. Only you will know the code for the code! That will surely fool all those really bright techie identity theft guys. Or just keep all your codes on a piece of paper in the WAY back of your bureau’s top drawer. Bad guys don’t look there. Right?
A few years back, we (we meaning the government) discovered that I shared a SSN with some middle-aged guy in North Carolina and I was assigned a new one. I’m still rather thrown by it, and often start to recite my old one — aka, middle-aged guy’s current one — when asked for my SSN. Oh…woe is me.
And when you lose your password, and you want to request a new password by e-mail, you have to remember which of your many e-mail addresses you registered with. When you finally remember that, and you give them the e-mail address, you can’t sign on your yahoo or gmail account, because YOU FORGOT THE PASSWORD! If you do remember the password for that e-mail account, fine, you sign on, you get your new password which is a combination of letters spit out by a computer. Instead of changing it to your default (9, would it be in your case) you attempt to memorize the computer generated one.
BTW. I’m really enjoying your blog. Thanks.
i have two different passwords that i use for everything, so if the first one i try didn’t work, i try the other. it makes things much easier. now if i could only remember my kids birthdates.
BOSCO
I’m an 8-er. I love the 8 digit code. Then you can do repeaters. Like…ABAB CDCD. Yes, simple ugh. LOL..if you figured out my one code…you’d be able to hack into anything I had. Voicemail, atm card, alarm system, all my screenames and computer crap. LOL. I’m easy.
Ooooh VIP strip club card. Wow…The NY Post and a VIP card. You’re one cool guy Mr. Pauly D.
xoxo
C
No More Codes, Please.
Here here!…
I’m with you. I’ve always figured that the day I go to work and can’t remember my passwords should be my last day of working.
Cas
Thanks for the laugh.
Nowadays, they try and make it easy by asking you a pre-answered security question. Passwords derived from questions like “What is your favorite movie?” are meant to simplify the process.
Of course, the inherent flaw here is that your tastes cannot evolve over time. Your favorite movie in 2002 had better withstand the test of time if you want to access your bank account in 2006.
I can’t even recall my own phone number. All of my website usernames and passwords get changed on a monthly basis because I’m too paranoid to write them down and completely incapable of remembering them.
This reminds me of a day in high school when I could not get my locker combination right even though I’d had the same locker for 3 years. I had to wait until the women from the office finished lunch before someone would look it up for me. (I’d transposed 2 digits for some reason.)
Oh for locker #317 which I’d had before. 37-11-1. If only I could use that brain space for new passwords and usernames.