JUST KICK ME.....

 

JUST KICK ME…..

 

As part of my civic responsibility, I feel it is my obligation to advise those of you much younger than myself of possible pitfalls they may encounter as they grow older. I consider these  bon mots to be form of a ‘public service announcement’ and thus they are tax deductions as well.

So, here it is: under no circumstances, and I mean zero, zip, nada, nein should you ever consider doing the following at one time:

Purchase a new cell phone, buy a new computer and new hearing aids all in the same month. In order not to waste any of your time, I will shorten each of these to CP, COM, HA. You should be able to figure out each from now on without much trouble.

Each of these devices operate on a multitude of Satan inspired little programs or doors called ‘apps’. Which is short for APPLICATIONS or God knows what. The CP, COM, HA all have these little ‘doors’ which require you to use a password to enter them and actually be able use them.

None of these are compatible with one another. I have had my old computer for over 8 years. One of the computer gurus in some place called Silicon Valley decided that since it was working entirely too well, they needed to change it all up and generate some huge profits so they could afford another mega-yacht for their mega wealthy friends and relatives. You can see these photos of perfectly muscled young men and bo-toxed women in various degrees of undress lounging in the sun on one of their many decks scheming of a new method to drive us crazy trying to operate their new systems. You never, ever see any photos of their overweight uncle Fred in a Speedo or their 89-year-old grandmothers in a bikini on their boats, do you? No, never. And you never will.

So, back to my problem. All of the ‘apps’ have their own special requirement for entry into their little app doors. Some want only a set of numbers, some want a capital letter and a series of numbers, some need a capital letter, a small caps letter and a number and finally, some want a symbol, a capital letter, a small caps letter and a number.

Ok, so you think to yourself… ‘I can do this’. So, you enter #345Mainstreet, that should do it, right?

Wrong, it says that you can’t use a password that you used 5 years ago. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning, how am I supposed to remember what I used 5 years ago? So you keep trying until you get one that works, but the problem then becomes…how do I remember it since it doesn’t make sense or is tied to something I can remember. So what do you do?

You get little book and write it down. But wait, this could fall into the hands of the enemy (your brother-in-law) and wipe you out. What to do?

So, you write it in code. Backwards or not using the first 3 letters or numbers. But then you forget the code and have to write the instructions to the code down but that could fall into someone’s hands as well.

This practice leads to your attempting to memorize these many different code words which you need so you can hear (HA) or call someone (CP) or pay a bill or get an email (COM). Not using the absolutely correct password then requires you to change your password at which time they will send you an OTP (one time password) to your cell phone which you can’t open since you don’t have a password yet. So, you send this OTP to your wife’s phone. This number might be 4 numbers or 8 numbers and you have about 23 seconds after it is received to enter it into the space on your phone or it will become invalid. This number can be resubmitted to you in the next 5 minutes, not any sooner. Meanwhile nothing gets accomplished in any way shape or form.

At the same time, those mega rich guys with their perfect mates are ordering more lobster and have their yacht moved to take advantage of the sun.

Later tonight at dinner, they will decide to change to password requirements to include a smiley face of some sort.

And they just lay back in their lounge chairs and laugh and laugh.

I hate these guys.

See you next week…Peary Perry