Passworditis

You know how after you're 40 years old and you forget something, somebody will say in a quippy voice: "Oops. Senior moment!" And then you freak out and assume that you're already declining or heading straight into senility?

Well, I figured it out - the cause of this. I call it Alphabet Soup or, better yet, Passworditis. Think about it - how many numbers and letters do you need to remember in your daily life? First there's your computer password, then your computer network password, then your PIN number, then your social security number, then your e-mail password, then your access code to your security system, then your employee number, then your student number....and on and on and on it goes. Then, one day, somebody asks for your child's social security number. It's at this point that your brain shuts down. You have filled it to capacity. Think about it - Your e-mail gets full. Your answering machine gets full. Your laundry chute gets full. Why wouldn't your brain fill up?

How the hell are you supposed to remember that Billy has band practice at 2:00 pm on July 1st when you've been working hard to remember your insurance ID number??!!

If you're like me and my husband, you try and streamline this and use a special date or birthday or something. Then you can't remember what the special date is or what his favorite team is supposed to be this year. Thus, you've made the problem worse because now you have to remember what you created to help you remember. This is the song that never ends. Yes it goes on and on my friends....

If you've seen "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," you know that there's a solution to this. Have your mind erased. You know - clean it out. Free your mind, as they say. Sure, you won't be able to do anything - conduct business, buy anything, do your job, study, write, correspond. But think how freeing that feeling could be. Then you could tell people: "I'll be laying low for the next few weeks. I'm having my mind cleaned." Unfortunately, what this process will not do is rid your mind of the stuff that takes up the extra corners of your mind...i.e. the lyrics to "Love Is A Battlefield," the name of the Cubs' second baseman in 1974, your first crush's birthday, the breed of dog that your grandmother had in 1965. My dad calls this mental lumber. Useless information that serves no purpose until one night you're drunk and there's a trivia game going on and somebody yells out: "Who caught Brett Favre's first pass as a Green Bay Packer?"

Yeah, I know. But if I tell you, then I'd have to kill you. And then I'd have to remember where I hid your body. If you give a mouse a cookie....