The other day, I forgot my PIN number. I think it was a Tuesday.
My daughter was going out to eat with friends. She was broke. I had a debit card. I had the solution. I didn’t mind. I know I’m talking like Joe Friday.
But evidently, no one was minding the store, as in Dennis Enterprises, also known as my formerly powerful mind, which could use a jolt of electricity.
I need some therapy, and that’s not the first time I’ve said that. I need some mental reconfiguration so I won’t forget details constantly.
It doesn’t have to be a big to-do. Just a miracle. Televised, of course. Something along the lines of this scene from “Young Frankenstein,” with all the drama of Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, played of course by Gene Wilder. I lie on a table prepared to be raised into a thunderstorm cloud by Dr. Frankenstein and his staff for the procedure.
“From that fateful day when stinking bits of slime first crawled from the sea and shouted to the cold stars, ‘I am man,’ our greatest dread has always been the knowledge of our mortality. But tonight, we shall hurl the gauntlet of science into the frightful face of death itself. Tonight, we shall ascend into the heavens. We shall mock the earthquake. We shall command the thunders, and penetrate into the very womb of impervious nature herself.”
In other words, we will help Andy remember his PIN number.
I’ve had the same PIN number for several years and I frequently use the card. That fateful day, I believe it was a Friday, I just couldn’t fetch it from my mind. I rattled off various sequences of numbers. Nothing rang a bell. It was like someone threw a sheet over my memory and I just couldn’t get out from under it. It was Jell-O that wouldn’t shake.
I bring this up because it’s not an uncommon occurrence. I tend to repeat myself.
“I can’t remember my PIN number!” I said as my daughter and two of her friends looked at me as though they were staring into the very eyes of an escaped mental patient.
“Give me a minute. It’ll come to me.”
Never did.
“My dad’s crazy,” she says.
I recall this event because it’s not an uncommon occurrence. I tend to repeat myself.
They (those people behind the curtain) say as one ages, one loses a bit of their mental edge. They also contend that your legs are the first to go. I say poppycock. Your PIN number goes first.
The first thing to go is your ability to remember your PIN number. That’s the kickstart for all kinds of ills. What’s next, liver spots?
Actually, it could be just password overload. How many Web sites require a name and password to access them? According to a recent survey of my crack team of Internet wizards, that number comes to 43 million and counting.
Want to listen to Pandora Internet Radio? Type in your name and password. Same for
Amazon.com, your local bank, sports boards, ESPN sites ... there’s just no end.
So how many four-digit numbers can we handle? How many different password combinations can our puny brains process? I envision myself going to an ATM, typing in my Amazon password and suddenly being surrounding by some of Bowling Green’s finest, weapons drawn.
“It’s OK sarge,” the officer calls into his shoulder radio. “Just a poor guy trying to scarf a $20 bill with the wrong password. We only shot him once. He’ll be fine.”
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