I would like to think it is not because of my age that passwords are wrecking havoc with my brain lately. It was fine in the beginning when only a few were needed. It would be the same unguessable but simple word, adding a sequential number if it had to be updated. All of sudden, a password is needed to access anything! Want to order a pizza? Want to shop online? Want to play a game? Want to check your spam e-mail? Want to get a haircut? Passwords needed.

When searching on-line, (using a password, of course,) I learned that the use of passwords is ancient. Knights would knock on the doors of castles and whisper the password of the day in order to save the damsel in distress. During prohibition, alcohol seekers would knock on a back room door in order to enter the forbidden world of drinking alcohol. Today we use a written form of the password in order to enter the secret lairs of the programs on our computer. They are used to authenticate that we are who we are.

These days, I don’t know if I am who I am. In addition to an explosion of additional sites needed one, the passwords have become increasingly complex. Some require a “special character”. Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy? My Aunt Margaret who is very eccentric? Just WHAT type of special character are they talking about? They all require a distinct arrangement of numbers and letters, some capitalized, some not. The problem is that each site is different.

I have several variations of my password, each one to fulfill different requirements. However, trying each variation gets me locked out for too many tries. Then I am stuck answering my “security questions”, another disaster in the making. I inevitably get the questions I don’t remember. “What is the name of your first pet?” I am 60 years old, I can’t remember back that far. “What is the name of your best friend?” The answer to that depends on when I answered the question…best friend 20 years ago? 10 years ago? Yesterday? “What was your first grade teacher’s name?” AGAIN, 55 years ago, DUH! So there I am, trying desperately to order something, or access something, or play something and I am locked out for too many tries and not knowing the answers to my security questions.

A statement on the web from lifehacker.com fits me perfectly: the best password is one you can’t remember, so write it down. My problem is, I can’t remember where I wrote it down!