Pinocchio’s Nose, Trivia and

Trivia is not one of my favorite pass-times. I never play memory games or record popular TV game shows.

Yet, I remember odd isolated numbers, colors, minutia having absolutely no bearing on my life today.

I remember wearing a pink taffeta ribbon around my ponytail the evening I had my first date.

My first phone number was Plaza 7-2336.

My Father wore size ten shoes and parted his hair on the left side.

Aniello Califano sat next to me in sixth grade.

My Mother’s shoe size was 8 quad A

My first bank account number, oh, no, you really don’t need to know that bit of unnecessary information.

Shall I go on, or have I told you more than enough.

And I have only done that to adequately explain my problem with passwords. I compulsively record each new one both on my keychain and then duplicate it on my contact app, coded of course.

However, I have three devices. One a cell phone used only for emergencies and always in my purse. Now of course, I am never totally certain where I left the purse, but I’m getting ahead of this story.

The other is my MacAir which lives enclosed in the wedgewood blue Ethan Allen desk in my bedroom. The small desk traveled north with me and reminds me of a dormer bedroom where daisies had been painted inside the closet by my young daughter.

The third and primary device is my faithful Ipad. Like Tonto, it follows me everywhere.

Sadly, I am not known for possessing excess patience. I am aware that I may be exaggerating, but it does appear that everyday I am required to provide a password for a different app. Rather than extricate the other two devices, and do a quick check to verify my memory, occasionally, I succumb and say, “Yes I will reset my password.”

This is a major mistake because that new information must then be recorded on the two other devices. Of course, both keychain and contacts must also be updated. I prefer to consider myself independent but there are moments when I would cheerfully hire a full time password administrator.

I believe I have more passwords than the fabled methuselah, and probably the longest keychain in existence.

And I wonder why if I can remember the precise amount of my first paycheck, all my children’s social security numbers, and recite without difficulty the phone number for every former residence, why has a simple code with eight letters, one Capital and two numerals become so difficult to maintain accurately.

Then as one of my favorite fairy tales re-emerges in memory I visualize the many variations of past passwords continuing to grow as long as Pinocchio’s nose.