Back in the dark ages, when I was a kid, I liked passwords. I liked the game show on TV that was fun to watch with my Granny. I also liked the sleuth-y sense of the Nancy Drew books.
I do not like passwords these days!
A recent encounter with a phishing scheme and some overlooked need for updates found me, trusted laptop in hand, at the Apple Genius store last week.
My personal genius was a delightful young woman who knew lots of things and was willing to repeat them as often as I asked, all while asking me to put in my password about 97 times.
She pushed a lot of keys having something to do with making malware go away, showed me some photo editing stuff (which is actually useful!) and even showed me how to know what a particular update would change.
Or at least what it was supposed to change.
I was feeling oddly comfortable. Enough to cruise through Dillards and snag a few of my all time favorite paint shirts at the 66% off Fathers Day sale. Yay!
Then, as instructed by the Genius, Bill did the big update, because apparently it took too long for me to take up space in genius land.
And, to his credit, it seems to work great.
Except for the minor fact that it kicked out all my passwords and doggedly insisted that I change them. As I mentioned, I do not like passwords these days.
Fast forward 4 days or so, and I’m still not enjoying the password thing. I’ve grown to actively despise the tattered little spiral notebook that’s never worked really well but was at least a place to start.
I have, however, spent way too much time feeling frustrated and pissed at whomever thought up this whole evil system.
Then, a new thought appeared like a miracle in some distant corner of my brain that wasn’t totally occupied with being annoyed.
I could get a new book! One chosen for it’s rather cool, old-ish design that almost has a Hobbit-like feel to it.
And I could take it with me on my trip to Grammy-land next week. You see, I know some girls who would be delighted to pick 3 or 4 random pages each and color me some surprise pictures in my snazzy new book.
I will probably still find passwords annoying, but I won’t mind looking them up and writing them down nearly so much.
And, way better even than that, my girls will have a chance to feel significant because they will truly be helping Grammy with something they’re no doubt better at than I am.
Win! Win! Win!
For now, I’m off to feed the dogs and hope that my friends at Amazon have made my magical new book appear so I can take its picture for you.
Magic, of many kinds, abounds!
Including the kind where Amazon doesn’t bring your magic book in time to post the blog so you whip out your magic cell phone, take a pic off the Amazon page, edit a bit, and post that!