Earlier this month, I discovered I had to log in to an online account in order to close it out. The problem was that I had never, ever, accessed this particular account, as my dealings with this particular company, up until now, had all been via written correspondence.

Diligently, I filled in all the red asterisk marked fields, and even some that weren’t specifically “required.” Then they asked me to create a password. Like most other people who frequent the Internet, I have several dozen passwords for everything from Amazon.com to StubHub, where I occasionally manage to score less-expensive Mariner tickets.

But this time there was an extensive list of “rules” for creating the password. 1) It had to be 8 to 16 characters. 2) It had to have at least one upper case letter. 3) It had to have at least one lower case letter. 4) It had to have at least one symbol. 5) The symbol could not be the “@” symbol. 6) The password must contain at least one number.

At this point I quickly tried to calculate the number of brain cells I’d fry trying to create such an exclusive thing. Finally, I came up with:  WtF?007NhTdwT!

Some of you will immediately figure out what it stands for, and it matters not that I tell this tale, as I am no longer using this password for anything at all. When I finally, FINALLY accessed my personal account, I was directed to print out a form, which then had to be SIGNED before MAILING it in to officially close the account.

Which I did.

All the while wondering if life might have been just a little bit simpler before all this highfalutin password-protected technology…