Password Hell

I've reached a point in my life where I am older, not technically old, but definitely gracing the covers of AARP soon enough. I truly realize this moment when I try to remember my pins, because GOD-forbid we have just one for every account, card, or bill paying event we might have.

This hits me while I am standing in Costco after a very long day and an exhaustive shopping trip that had to be done. I am tired. I have 5 kids, so that isn't too surprising, but my brain capacity has reached a maxed energy usage and I feel the breakers starting to make that snapping noise.

The checker looks at me expectantly, his pseudo-patient stare letting me know his part is done...now pay. I swipe my card. And stand there. I rifle through my wearied memory banks to find the right digits that I need to punch into the stupid card machine. How many freakin' numbers do I really need? People can hack my account at any given time, do I really need 10 different pin numbers? I start to sweat because I know I have a finite amount of chances before the gormless machine locks me out. It happened before and it wasn't pretty.

My fingers are hovering over the buttons and a series of numbers float to the top of my muddy mind. Praying, I tap the numbers in and wait, "Did I do it? Did I get them right?". The transaction floats through and the checker dismisses me with my mile-long receipt. As I turn to retrieve my cart, I wonder, why does this have to be so hard?

I have pin numbers for all my debit cards, my bank accounts, my bill accounts and they are all different. I know we haven't tapped the true extent of our minds, but some days it feels like it.

But I realize that that is nothing compared to the passwords I have to remember. Luckily, most websites give you "email your password" to you, I just wish the ATM machine was a supportive.