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The taunting words flashed from the computer screen: "Invalid sign-in. Make sure caps lock is off."
"It's because of my age, isn't it?," I yelled at the machine. "You think I'm a drooling idiot who doesn't know enough to turn off his… Oh hey, the caps lock is on."
I tapped the unlock button. "Stop smirking."
I retyped the password, watching each dot appear on the screen. The dots are designed to make sure no one peeking over your shoulder can learn your secret code. But what it really means is I have no idea what I'm typing.
"Hey," I once called out to the guy peeking over my shoulder at the ATM. He was ignoring all the dots and watching my fingers on the keypad instead. "That third number I hit, was it a seven or a nine?"
"A nine. Not that I was looking, mister."
I nodded. "No wonder I can't get this thing to work. I don't have any PINs with nines."
"Oh," he said. He tore a page out of his notebook, crumpled it and walked away.
That's the problem with technology. While it eliminated the need to ever again memorize a phone number, we now have an alphabet soup of PINs, passwords, user IDs and logins swirling about the nooks and crannies of our brains.
Several of those letters -- mostly p, q and g -- are forever getting their tails caught in one of the wrinkles of gray matter, and the whole series jams up and is never heard from again.
But every office, club, business and agency insists that I create some sort of online account, adding another layer to the maze of letters, numbers and characters cluttering and cramming more cranium space than phone numbers ever did.
You know that adage about old dogs and new tricks? Well, woof, woof. Whenever some screen or keypad orders me to enter a login, I want to roll over and have someone rub my belly instead.
I shook my head, hoping to dislodge a lost digit, and punched "enter" on my laptop keyboard. The same invalid login message popped up in red letters.
"Great day. Well if you're not 'Dumbo41' then which password are you? 'Dalmatians101'? '3Pigs'?"
I scrolled through the menu on my phone and punched the button for my wife. "Sweetheart, what's my password for my laptop?"
"Not again," she sighed. "Isn't it 'Grumpy7'?"
"No, that's for the desktop. Or was that my login for work?"
"Maybe it's your email?"
"Which one? I have three AOL accounts, a Gmail, two Yahoos and work email. And they all have different passwords to keep them secure."
"Is it working?"
"Yes," I said. "I haven't been able to crack my own code in three months. I'm locked out of all of them."
"Why don't you write down your passwords?"
"I did," I said. "I think one whole gig of my hard drive is used up by the folder that stores all my PINs and passwords."
"So look it up."
"I can't," I said.
"Why not?"
I slapped the table. "It's on my laptop. That's why I need my sign-in."
I ended up giving up and calling for a pizza instead. It was the only number I could remember.
— If you can remember your login, send Cole email at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook. If he remembers his, he'll let you know.