What if I Don’t Wanna Enter My Name And Password Here…?

Is it just me or are we being “user-named,” “passworded” and “PIN-numbered” to death these days? I’m telling you, I have so many log-ons to every imaginable site – for personal use, for work, for banking, for bill-paying. Not to mention the user names and passwords I need for e-mailing and facebooking and blogging. Oh my.

I don’t use the same user name and/or password for all those things because I don’t want to make it easier for a hacker to hack my stuff. On the other hand, I can’t imagine how exciting it would be to hack into my cable bill or my Twitter account. Who knows? Perhaps they could make my tweets a little more regular and halfway interesting.

The other day my boss asked me to create a Facebook page for his other-other business (he has several). I did an exaggerated mental sigh and an eye roll. Plus an imaginary hands-on-hips gesture with a little toe-tapping to underscore my huffiness. What I said, however, was, “Sure! No problem!”

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I don’t like to be creative. It’s more like I couldn’t bear to create yet another Facebook page under my name. I mean, I have one for personal use and one for his second business. And now I had to create yet a third Facebook page wherein I’m one of the administrators? Please. I’m gettin’ dizzy here!

So I put my creativity to the test and instead opened a new Yahoo address for him. And then I created a Facebook page for his other-other business. Pretty clever of me, eh? Yeah, but while it solves one problem, it creates another. See, I’M going to have to be the one who remembers all these e-mail addresses and passwords and log-ons. And I’ve got enough of my own to contend with! It’s only going to get more complex because I’m quite sure his next request will be to create a Twitter account for this other-other business. Who knows? I might get so frustrated, I’ll do the hands-on-hips and toe-tapping thing for real.

Most of the time I’m pretty organized and I’m able to handle all these log-ons, passwords and such, but it became an embarrassing situation a couple months ago at Costco. I normally use my debit card as Credit so I get the points offered by the bank. What this means is that I don’t need to remember the PIN number. Well, Costco only accepts Debit cards (or their American Express card, which in my opinion is a clever ploy to get you to sign up for yet another card.)

Anyway, we were using a relatively new card – and I’d only used it as “credit” prior to this shopping excursion. And, for the life of me, I could not remember the PIN number. We tried the one Vince thought we received when we signed up for the card. Didn’t work. I tried the normal “go to” PIN Number I’ve used forever. No dice. We were getting a little desperate because we didn’t have enough cash to cover our purchases and we couldn’t use a credit card. And then we noticed the line behind us growing ever longer and we started hearing audible sighs. Believe me, I could relate. Allegedly I may even have been one of those sighers in the past.

Finally, we hit upon the brilliant idea of writing a check to pay for our purchases, which, of course, caused another problem. Why? Because my checks were still in my birth name and not my married name. Arrrghhh! Fortunately, the manager approved it – probably because he was afraid all the people in line behind us would revolt and start the first-ever Costco riot. (Truthfully, it was more likely because I was smart enough to carry our marriage certificate in my purse for just such occasions. He couldn’t really dispute that I was who I said I was.)

The first thing we did when we got home – even before refrigerating our purchases? Change the PIN Number to one I might actually remember. I’ve gotta admit, I feel a major sense of relief when I use that card and tap in the 4-digit PIN number – and it is accepted. Major whew!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to post this to blogger.com. I only hope I can remember the log-in and password. Wonder if my debit card PIN Number would work?