Monday, December 2, 2013

The Password Is.....

I don't know why but I worry about repeating information here. As if anyone reading this is going to remember I wrote about my Uncle Harold two years ago. Actually, I don't have an Uncle Harold but I did have an Uncle Harry.

Saturday I couldn't access my E-mail. 

When I tried to sign on to mail I was taken back to my home page again and again. To put it in a nutshell, I was going around in circles. 

Comcast or Xfinity, whatever it is these days, has been having mail issues for months. The Help Forum was loaded with angry comments so I knew it wasn't me. At first I wasn't concerned; sooner or later things get fixed. 

Around 11 p.m. Saturday night I was reading on my Kindle and was able to access my mail.

Sent by Comcast 11:13 a.m. Saturday morning:

Our records show that you recently changed the email password on your account. If you did not authorize this change, please call Comcast at 1-800-COMCAST and we'll be happy to assist in any way we can.

Am I being an insufferable ass by pointing this out?

IF I DID NOT AUTHORIZE THE CHANGE HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SEE THE COMCAST E-MAIL?

If I did not authorize the change to a new password I can't access my E-mail.

Now I suppose you could say the system worked. I did see the Comcast notice on a different device but that's assuming everyone HAS a second or third device. 

I was too tired to investigate the problem and really, I don't read half my E-mail why would someone else. I decided to call Comcast in the morning.

Sunday 7 a.m.

My first ordeal through the phone tree connected me to someone with a thick accent. I had a very hard time understanding her but it didn't matter because she disconnected me before we accomplished anything.

I have yet to drink my morning coffee and I'm shrieking HELLO, HELLO, ARE YOU THERE into the phone while doing my best impression of an old sailor with a twenty word vocabulary. S@#T....MO***R F*****. I thought I heard Wanda, who was in the back of the house say something like "not again" which meant I was complaining about something in my own special way (she was probably making plans to get out of the house for the day).

I requested tech support the second time I called.

Now I was talking with someone in this country.

I explained the problem. "I can't sign-in to my E-mail. I keep going in circles from my home sign-in page to the E-mail sign-in page over and over."

Sharron changed some things on her end, gave me a new temporary password and told me to "try it again." I did and the same thing happened, so I said.

"The same thing happened."

"What's that sir?"

What's that sir? I still can not sign into my E-mail; I'm going from my home page to my E-mail page and back to my home page. I CAN'T SIGN-IN TO MY E-MAIL.....THAT'S WHAT.

Then she said. "That's strange; I'm not having a problem on my end."

And the proverbial light bulb appeared over my head. Hold on, let me try something here. I cleared all of my browser data. My history, cookies, passwords and downloads, all of it. Erased, obliterated, gone.

I used the temporary password Sharron gave me and voila' it worked. Then I went into my settings changed my password back to the original one and everything was copacetic....until I went back on line.

Now I had to sign into every password required site.

I have an address book filled with passwords, some I haven't used in ten years. I have seventeen variations of my name and address, cat names, kid's names, nicknames, and secret names I call Wanda. I have passwords for sites that no longer exist and sites I no longer use. And to make maters even more confusing, I have sign-ins for Comcast, Google and Yahoo.

For example, this blog goes with a Google E-mail user name and password, but I can never remember that, or if I have it listed under Google or Blog, and to make matters worse I changed it a few months ago. I had to. I couldn't remember what it was then.

So here I have all these passwords to get into sites I don't use, don't need, don't want and don't erase. The real issue is I'm too lazy to actually check them, what if I erased something I'll need a year or two from now?

Oh my god, I'm in trouble. I'm a cyber hoarder.

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