Usernames and Passwords

Usernames and Passwords

Is it too late to change my New Year’s resolution? After some thought, my current resolution of joining the American Idol fan club, gaining VIP entry to special events, and incessantly heckling the dearest fans might be too costly and time consuming. Besides, I hear Bieber is adding dates on the world tour anyway. Last week, while attempting to log into my pay pal account for the 24 hour Idol gold membership promotion, I quickly received a notification that my username OR my password was incorrect, but they could not tell me which one. Boy is that annoying. 

I haven’t logged in to pay pal since I wired $1,600 to that hot chick stranded in West Africa five years ago.  Sounds stupid, I know, but I swear she was mutual friends with another hot chick friend on Facebook that I don’t recall speaking with. Anyway, she was somehow detained at customs, and I guess she needed the money to pay legal fees or something. Either way, I spent all afternoon on my Dell Inspiron 8200 computer (circa Y2K) attempting every combination of my birthday, address, work I.D. number, and mother’s maiden name to no avail. I also tried every pet name and self-esteem building wisecrack my mother called me with no luck.

Who needs pay pal anyway. Then I remembered when the Feds questioned me for selling bath salts on Ebay. Although I agreed not to sell any more items, I figured my account info was still active to buy stuff. But again, I could not easily log on. This time I needed to recall an 8 digit super code to gain entry to the wonderful world of extremely cheap items offset by extremely expensive shipping fees. No bueno.

Day turned to night and my barrel ass got sore sitting cramped under my Ikea desk. Then I realized while walking off the pins and needles in my numb feet that even my Ikea account required a username and password. Due to some act of corporate trickery, Ikea spammed me about their boxy furnishings from every uncreative square-headed Northerm European designer. Despite my best efforts to get removed from their electronic mailings, they continue to harass me about oddly spelled designs and ugly large-handled cutlery. The only good thing to come out of that transaction was an irrational distaste for all people of Swedish descent. In Ikea's Brooklyn megastore, above the registers, these arrogant Aryan scumbags hang a ten foot long glossy sign promoting .50¢ hot dogs. At the bottom of the sign in fine print is the disclaimer “*not actual size.” What a shame Ikea was the only big business in Red Hook unaffected by hurricane Sandy. Maybe they should build their furniture with the same craftsmanship their tall waterfront warehouse rests upon.

…But back to god forsaken passwords. It seems every action made easier by computer technology has become preempted by some cumbersome letter and number combination in recent years. Thank god I live in New York City. If I cannot find what I’m looking for-in the real world where I reside- then I don’t want it! I don’t care if satisfaction is guaranteed or the shipping is free because it never is. And both of those lies only require ANOTHER set of usernames and passwords just to return items.

Screw web shopping and the thorny tax implications. With your permission, I hereby resolve not to conduct any commerce requiring another username and password. In fact, I also resolve REDUCE the amount of usernames and passwords currently in use.  I’m starting with the banks and utility companies. You would think as banks get gobbled up by other banks that the account management process would be streamlined. Screw 'em. I’m quitting cold turkey-like all the other indiscretions in my past.

Call me a trend setter, but I’m avoiding Chase bank until they’re the only shylock in town, and have no choice but to deal with the evil bastards. The same goes for the utilities and insurance companies. Governor Cuomo has such a hard-on for these blood suckers that they’re likely to be legislated out of existence anyway. Screw them and their ear bleeding repetitive commercials too. Next up will be web accounts with no use for usernames and passwords to begin with.

What is so valuable about the media that I need a matrix of secret codes just to catch up on the sports scores or read a movie review? Online media may be making the printing press obsolete, but I’d rather spend four bits a day to avoid more daily spam. They all lift news items from each other anyway. With competition for a breaking story so intense, news outlets mess up more facts than they get right these days. Newspapers should fire their IT people and re-hire fact checkers.

Then there’s all breeds of delivery services. If some co-dependent sociopath cannot step away from the keyboard and interact with another human by phone to order a meal, then he deserves to be contaminated. Furthermore, I don’t want any foreign screwballs in possession of my credit card account. I resolve to rock out old school and pay the electric powered moped guy with the plastic bag handlebars myself.  Next is the fat, dyslexic, Ipod wearing, year-round shorts wearing, driveway blocking, union protected, can’t even ring a fucking bell before he dumps packages in the lobby, FedEx delivery man-boy. He is another scourge of modern technology that should also be euthanized. Worse than him is the lazy customer service reps that won’t track your package after two weeks in delivery limbo. Instead, they generally direct customers to web-tracking online.  But that requires yet ANOTHER set of usernames and passwords. This intrusion peppers in security questions to compliment forgotten passwords adding to the poor service. In the unlikely chance somebody walks off with your illegal Canadian prescriptions, you can now be given an extended run-around before FedEx tells you you’re S.O.L.

Often the security questions seem dumber than the need for usernames and passwords to begin with. What if you don’t remember your first pet’s name because he became roadkill while you were pooping your pants fresh after toilet training? Perhaps your third pet (a guppy) left a lasting impression on you, before witnessing your second pet (a cat) swipe it out of the tank and devour it in front the family. Maybe the cracking of the poor fish’s skull made you block out all childhood memories including getting slapped repeatedly for pooping your pants and removing them in the department store during Christmas.

Maybe I don’t want the midget porn site knowing my mother’s maiden name? Maybe any porn site worth its salt shouldn’t require an uppercase letter and a symbol as a username? Maybe web sites failing to remind users of login particulars are secretly managed by middle east dictators? I long for the days of yesteryear when updating the phone company of a new dial up modem was not considered a high security threat.

Oddly enough, none of my accounts or identity was ever compromised UNTIL everything needed password protection. Since then, my personal life has been ravaged by fraud and malfeasance. Thankfully, recent protections have empowered the consumer to stamp out crime and perform credit monitoring, free of charge…but guess what’s required first???