Ok, I’ve survived Black Friday, Pearl-Gray Friday and Cyber Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday – whichever day it was). I stayed away from ordering anything online in the interests of being cybersafe. I think I am, although any hacker looking at my bank account this week would just laugh and move on to a more lucrative victim.
I received a nice note on the app from my preferred coffee shop chain. I won’t name it in the interests of privacy and lawsuit avoidance, but I will say its logo colors are purple and orange. They notified me that, in addition to a free bonus drink, I also had a free drink in honor of my birthday. How exciting!! My birthday was earlier in the week, but I had until today to use the bonus coupon. Wonderful. I went out to do some grocery shopping and figured that I’d swing by and get my free coffee. Onset dementia plagues me and I completely forgot. So, out I go again to get my free coffee because, well anything that’s free can’t be passed up. I’m walking through the door and ordering my coffee, feeling satisfied and happy inside, and at that precise moment, my phone goes all dark. I know, that can’t be a good sign. I knew it needed to be charged, but NOW? The coffee is arriving, so I pull out my debit card because I’d also forgotten to get cash at the grocery store. I insert it and it makes that grunting sound, and the screen reads, “chip malfunction”. Ok, this is going wonderfully well. I’m just going to go home, climb into bed, and pull the blankets up over my head. I’ll stay there until after the Patriots game this afternoon, because I’m a jinx. The remarkable part is that I’d had that problem with the debit card before routinely, so the bank sent me a new one just a couple of months ago, with presumably a fresh, new chip made by skilled professionals in the foothills of the Himalayas. So . . . , after inserting three times, which is apparently the magic number, like clicking the heels of the ruby slippers, it was able to tell me to slide the card (which of course I’d done for years until the game-changing cards with chips). That finally elicited a sound of approval from the scanner and all went forward. Fantastic. Another major triumph for technology. I’m happy to tell you all that I was able to overcome my frustration (which Herself and The Daughter will tell you is no small order) and resisted the urge to throw the phone into the nearest snowbank. As George W. Bush would say, “Mission Accomplished”.
This all comes on the heels of an extended period in which my phone has been telling me, like every two to three minutes, to “update settings” by signing in to my Apple ID at my Yahoo email address. I do, and it proceeds to tell me they have no record of that email address. I respond, perhaps in an elevated tone of voice, because the neighbors remarked on it, that IT told ME it had that address on record. How can it possibly ask me to update the address of which it has no record? Not a day to have my blood pressure checked. I called Apple Care, and spoke to a very nice lady, and we bonded in the 90 minutes we worked as a team, trying all manner of different things to unlock the elusive password. We tried “I forgot my password” more times than I can remember – in fact, that came close to becoming my screen saver. I should mention that, a couple of months back, we had to replace our computer, which had so thoughtfully saved all the user names and passwords over the years, so I wouldn’t have to remember them. I know, I know. Now I have a notebook with all of them carefully written down for us and any burglars that happen to stop by. It’s in the desk drawer, next to the checkbook. (NOTE TO BURGLARS: see opening paragraph.)
Anyway, after the hour and a half of trying to retrieve the password, or any record of the lost email username, Shannon, or Shonnon, or Shenanigans and I parted ways. She told me that I’d get a text message from the Apple ID people within 24 to 48 hours informing me that it would be safe to reset my password, because hopefully by then they’d have found my email username. That message will probably come from Kurdistan, after they’ve checked in with the factory in Tibet. The text should have come a week ago and it hasn’t arrived. It could be somewhere in a subterranean computer station with Donald Trump’s tax returns and Hillary Clinton’s lost emails. Of course, the phone still badgers me at every turn to “update” my Apple ID settings. The most annoying part, however, is that I had it set so I wouldn’t have to put in my passcode every time I wanted to use the phone. Now I have to spend that precious extra .37 seconds to input the code. And, it’s has been extended from four digits to six. I can’t remember six numbers. To tell you the truth, I’d have made a truly lousy spy, because I’m not good with numbered codes, plus I’m a talker. No need for torture, I’ll tell you everything I know and more. Maybe I’ll have to use the briefcase code in “Spaceballs” – 1234, and then add 5 and 6. That makes sense and is totally secure. Nobody would think of that. It’s like hiding your car keys at the beach in the toe of your sneakers. Who could, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, crack that fortress of security?
The other day, I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription that was ready. They asked me for if I had a rewards card. I do, so I put in my phone number and up it came. In truth, I don’t ever remember getting any actual rewards, although they’re probably in the two miles of coupons somewhere. Then it asked me if I understood the directions, because all prescriptions now come with three to four pages of instructions and technical medical information for medications I’ve been taking for years. Yup, I’m good, thanks so much. I’ll just sign here on this little swiveling screen. Then, would I like to donate to several of their charities? No, thanks. I’ll tap the handy blue button marked “no”. Then it tells me, after this complex sequence, that I owe $5.88. OK. How did it come up with that amount? Used to be $5, but now it’s $5.88. Is that the inflation rate? The Dow Jones average? It could be an insurance code number. Maybe that .88 from everybody will pay this month’s electric bill, or will defray the cost of the mountains of register tape. Who knows?
As I may have mentioned before, my phone is a piece of work to begin with. It was sent to me as a replacement for one that was damaged several years ago. I believe it was refurbished, not a brand new one, because it has an annoying tendency for the screen to freeze at inopportune moments, and then the cursor jumps about like a mosquito on the back porch. I thought for some time it was just me it was provoking, until The Daughter tried to use it one day and it threw one of its hissy fits on her too. I believe her exact words were, “Dad, this phone is possessed.” The snowbank episode earlier today is not its first brush with death.
So, here I sit, writing this all out as something my therapist says is good for me, letting my phone charge, sipping a free coffee that cost me $2.25 plus the gas to get it. Maybe I’ll go back once my phone is charged to get . . . . ok, I’m really thinking, no.
I'm Thinking...No! 