Forgot Password?

Passwords. A shiver just went down your spine, I can feel it.  What can be more frustrating about our fabulous connected age than the creation and remembrance of the dreaded password? Your computer crashing is worse but hopefully that doesn't happen often, while the creation and constant changing of passwords is an ongoing nightmare.

Back when online passwords first poked their ugly heads above the newly planted grass of the digital world they were simple creatures. Six to twelve letters, nothing fancy, easy to remember. Your dog's name, the street you grew up on, your favourite colour or sports team. A cousin to the four letter numerical password or PIN required for ATM's and phone banking. It was all so easy back then. Remember?  One password seemed to do the trick for all your needs and there weren't many needs. Then they started to evolve, these simple beasts, fed and watered by the growth of online shopping and all those damn loyalty cards. Collect points with us! Collect points with us! the stores and airlines screamed but first...sign up online with your new card and make up a password for your account. Everything we wanted to do online to make our lives easier, to cut down on mail or make certain jobs quicker required a password. With all the online access came the hackers and with them, identity theft and fear. The beast is now fully grown, stomping through our backyards, uprooting shrubs and scaring the pets and making us bar the door. Passwords now need to include a capital letter, a number and symbol. They can't be one you have used before, they should be changed every few months and worst of all, the beast shouts at us, its hot, stinking breath in our face...DON'T WRITE THEM DOWN!  Are you kidding me?? Ain't never gonna happen, folks.

How I think the password
beast looks

I have to write them down. I just updated a list of all my passwords and there are one hundred of them, give or take, and the list is growing as I write this. Passwords are multiplying like rabbits. The request for a password is so commonplace and never ending that I find myself quickly making up one to get through some sort of booking process or purchase and not writing it down. Oh, I'll remember, I say to myself. Nope. So now, as commonplace as the request for a log in with a password is, just as commonplace is the little phrase in parentheses (Forgot Password?) That's a double edged sword, that little phrase.  You used to be able to recover your password from a clue you gave yourself but no more. If you forget your password now we all know you get emailed a link to make a new one. The useful side of the blade. Which is great when I want access to something at that moment but it then requires me to remember the new password, hopefully write it down and even more hopefully manage to get it onto my constantly updated list. Ouch, that's the side I get cut on.

So, why not just use the "forgot Password" link every time, you ask? Why bother to write it down? Every now and again the reset link for the password doesn't work or doesn't appear in time, or at all, in your email inbox and then you're done for.  An insanely frustrating scenario is when I am trying to log in to an account with the info from my crib sheet and I receive an "incorrect username or password" message. I have to succumb to the "forgot password" link, wait for the link in my email, reset my password and then get an error code telling me something has gone wrong and I must call their 1-800 number to sort it out. Unless its something crucial I'm trying to do, at this point I usually get up and walk away.  Then there is The Loop. The place where you can't log in with the information you have and you can't seem to reset it because your email address is already being used in the system. Yes, I know, its being used... by me! Again, the only resolution is to go back to the frustrating phone calls with their lists of "options".  Listen carefully as the options have recently been changed. Argh.

The solution to all this agony would seem to be simple. Use the same password as much as possible even though it's not considered safe. I do that but not all websites take the same configuration of numbers and letters. One letter wrong and you are screwed, there is no autocorrect on passwords. Some sites demand I change my password and snottily tell me not to use one I've used before, They've come up against lazy farts like me too many times, they seem to say. Don't piss off the beast.  I use the "save password" option on my computer when I can and save them to the Cloud which leaves me more vulnerable to computer hackers. I could disconnect from the online world, use the phone more, spend my time picking through options on those awful phone systems, pay my bills at the bank with their two tellers and lines of geriatric clients, send stuff through the postal service, allowing five BUSINESS days for delivery...roll the clock back. I should quit collecting points and the freebies and perks that go with it. Get in the car and drive to the stores looking for stuff the old fashioned way. That might solve the problem but I can't do that. I love my online world and its not going away any time soon.  

 An article posted recently on the site Gigaom.com , tackles the subject of passwords and everyone's hatred of them from the user as well as the tech end. Passwords are on their way out, to be replaced by facial, eye, voice and fingerprint recognition.  Until that happens or the apocalypse comes and all the computer systems crash you will find me updating my list, cursing my memory and listening closely to the options that have changed.... with one eye on the beast.

Obsessive/Compulsive or Organized/Committed?

Sitting in a restaurant waiting for our food to arrive I watch a couple at another table get their meals placed in front of them.  A perfectly normal looking pair of diners, husband and wife perhaps, mid-forties, dressed up for their pleasant evening out. The wife picks up her cutlery and begins to  eat while her husband pulls a tiny tape measure out of his pocket and proceeds to measure his food. Nose just inches from his plate he carefully measures each item.... meat, potatoes, veg.  He doesn't write anything down, just measures. The little tape zips back and forth, out and in over his plate and cutlery, everything accounted for.  His wife, obviously used to the process,  continues to calmly eat her meal. When done with the tape measure the gentleman slips it back into his pocket and picks up his knife and fork and eats his dinner, impulses fulfilled. As compulsions go this was one I hadn't seen before and it seemed perfectly harmless. His food might have gotten a little cold but no one else was bothered or inconvenienced.
Tics, habitual behaviour, compulsions, OCD, anal behaviour, there's lot of names for it. Nutty, crazy, irritating are a few more. Depends on which side of the habit you're on. We all have them, it's just that some are more obvious like the tape measure. Start asking around and you'll be surprised at the routines and habits people can't do without or if they do it leaves them irritated and anxious in some way.
I was at a Christmas office party with my husband many years ago and each of the round dining tables in the venue had a potted poinsettia on it. As I sat, bored, listening to speeches from the office bigwigs I noticed that the pot on our table had a bar code tag stuck to the side of it. I reached over and carefully peeled it off, just a small effort to make it look nicer. Something to do in my boredom. Another woman at the table observed me and snidely remarked, " a little OCD are we?"  I was stung. "No, I prefer to think of it as a little Martha Stewart", I responded.  Just depends which side of the moment you are on. I could have easily left the tag there and not been bothered by it. OCD in my book would be getting up and removing the tag from everyone else's poinsettia pot as well. I know a woman who can't go to bed without plumping and shaping her couch cushions. Some can't go to bed without washing all the dirty dishes.  I need a glass of water beside my bed at night. My husband always rinses his mouth out with water before he brushes his teeth. Habits or compulsions? It's a fine line.

I'm not ready for one of these yet.

Talking with friends the other night I said that I had planned both my pregnancies and delivered both babies on their due dates. My friends smiled knowingly at one another and said, "OCD".  I don't know how you can make your babies come out on schedule because of your own compulsion but I just knew I was tired of waiting and told them to get on with it. I prefer to believe I'm just good at observing deadlines. There are no routines I have that are so fixed that something couldn't be changed and not upset me, I don't need to wash my hands all the time, or touch a group of objects in a particular order. My house is generally a bit untidy day to day, ironing not done, bed not made, dirty dishes can, unfortunately, sit on the counters without making me uncomfortable,  I don't get up or go to bed at the same time every day. But...I do find myself counting objects for no reason at times, and when someone is talking to me I will sometimes write words they say on my leg with my fingertip. As a kid I went through a time of not being able to leave the house without taking a quick drink a water, to the point here my mom thought I might be diabetic. Compulsions, habits, comforts?  Are these things a distraction tool of a mind always looking to busy itself? One person's comforting habit is another's obsessive compulsion. I guess when the compulsions and habits become dangerous or consume so much time
that they interfere with life they are signs of clinical OCD.  But otherwise, we are all in glass houses throwing stones if we think what others do is crazy and what we do is just fine. You won't catch 
me taking a measuring tape out for dinner with me anytime soon though.

Feeling Peevish? Tell Me About It...

There are still seven weeks of winter left, I'm fighting a cold and feeling peevish. So here in no particular order are my pet peeves ....this week.

The common cold. We can cure all kinds of diseases, take a baby out of the womb, operate on it and put it back in, give people organs from other people, make prosthetic limbs that respond to our nerve impulses but we can't find a cure or vaccine for the common cold! C'mon people, work a little harder on this. I know colds aren't too deadly but they cause a lot of missed work days, misery and the occasional death. I think it bears looking into.

People that repeatedly press the lock button on their car key fob when locking their car. Honk, honk, honk, honk. It doesn't get any more locked the more times you push the button, trust me on this one. Once will do. We don't need more noise pollution in this world so if you cannot resist the urge to double and triple lock your car please have the horn toot disconnected from it and then fire away. Otherwise try to have some control.

When ordering tea in a restaurant and receiving a cup of hot water and a tea bag on the side.  That's the saddest excuse for a hot tea I've seen. I will gladly take the little metal teapot with the drippy pour spout over that. Coffee bars will put the bag in the cup before the hot water but they like to use 16 ounce cups of water for a little teabag that only makes an eight ounce cup of tea. And there seems to be a whole generation of servers now that don't know what black tea is and when asked for black tea, offer up a shopping list of herbal teas without the faintest knowledge that they aren't really teas. I've basically quit ordering tea. Sigh.

Servers that come by and cheerfully ask you "how are those first few bites tasting?" while the food is still steaming on your plate, too hot to take a bite out of. It's an annoying question whether you have taken the first bites or not and usually interrupts a conversation I'm having. Don't be so insecure, assume the food is fine. Ask me if I need anything or if everything is ok but don't ask for reassurance that the food is just dandy.

Impenetrable packaging.

Drivers. Drivers in the left lane going slower than the rest of the traffic. Drivers in the HOV lane who believe it was meant as a personal racetrack. Drivers who have no clue as to how to use a roundabout. Drivers who try to sneak through on a four way stop when it's not their turn. Drivers who don't allow me to merge. By looking straight ahead and pretending I'm not there as I nose my car towards you is a bit childish. The sign says "merge", learn the meaning. That one car length you save won't make a difference to your trip.

Sizing on women's clothing. I am twenty pounds heavier than when I was in my twenties but I still wear the same size clothing, my clothes are bigger  but the size on the tag is the same. Are we so vain and so self delusional, ladies that we need to pretend we wear the same size as we get heavier?  There were no size "0" and "00" when I was younger.  The clothing industry has had to make those sizes up as they adjusted all the sizes to fit larger. I should be a size 16 now, not a 12.  To make matters worse each line of clothing sizes their goods differently which leads to having to try on an enormous amount of clothing to find a fit. I can wear from a size 10 to a 14.  I know men don't have that problem.

Charging for alterations on women's clothes but not on men's.

Yoga teachers who say really stupid stuff to try and sound all 'new agey' and ethereal. Don't tell me that I am being breathed, I'm doing the breathing, I know that.

The pool of urine men leave on the floor in front of the toilets in unisex bathrooms in restaurants. I would think the target area was big enough, guys. And while I'm on the topic, I'm hugely peevish about the women that urinate all over toilet seats in public restrooms and then leave it there for the next person.  Some of us actually sit on that seat. Thanks for that little surprise.

Anyone who rings my doorbell to try and sell me on their religion,

People who ring the doorbell and then knock or ring the doorbell again about five seconds later.  I'm not standing right beside the door all day just waiting to let you in, it might actually take ten seconds to get to the door. It's a house, after all, not a studio apartment. Hold your horses.

This is by far an incomplete list but if you have even managed to read this far I applaud you. Some of our peeves are universal but many are very personal and seem nonsensical to others. So if I made you smile or nod your head in agreement, I'm delighted and I feel less peevish already. If you have a favourite pet peeve that needs airing please leave it in the comment section at the bottom of the page on my blog site or email me it to at whatfayesaid@gmail.com. Always happy to hear from you. Time to take my cold meds.