I first started using computers in 1968. At that time, the only password I ever heard of was “Open sesame”, but not knowing the whereabouts of any caves, treasure-filled or otherwise, I never had occasion to use it. In other words, passwords weren’t in high demand. Keeping the computer from crashing to its knees was our feverish priority.

Not today. Today, passwords rule us. With cruelty and malice aforethought. Today, you can forget about creating a password as magical as “Open sesame”, because . . .

1. The password needs to be 12 or more characters long.
2. The upper and lower case letters are acceptable, but the errant space is a no-no.
3. At least one numeral is required and if more are entered, they may NOT be duplicated or consecutive.
4. One or more special characters are mandatory, but may or may not be repeated, and the choice of which are selectable cleverly varies from website to website.
5. If you have EVER used the same password on that website before, you will be arrested and jailed, so don’t even think about it.
6. The password must be changed every 90 days – or however long it took to finally memorize it.

If I wasn’t so ladylike, I would refer to them as “pisswords”.

“Failwords” will have to do. Today, any humble computer with halfway decent horsepower and a little Boolean algebra can unravel a 12 character password in seven minutes or less. You just have to cling to the forlorn hope that your personal bank account isn’t one of those chosen for that unexpected spending spree of your next month’s rent money.

Recently, my operating system has been giving me threatening messages that 43 of the passwords carefully stored in my iCloud Keychain may have been “compromised”. All 43 are for the exact same password. It’s one I was successfully using for at least 10 years starting about 1990. Family members, friends, neighbors, and perfect strangers I shared it with found it to be just as effective and easy to remember as I did! Yay! But, sadly, the ax has fallen! I am currently plodding through all 43 websites, wondering when I ever visited them, and either severing my acquaintance with the site, or changing the password to something endearing, like “koqtav47-Wodvik-2pyt$de”.

Please don’t tell me this has never happened to you: you very carefully enter your password as you think you remember it, but you’re not sure it’s correct because you can’t see it, so you try one more time and then get locked out.

But all is not lost, because your friendly computer is ready to forgive you. Sort of. “Forgot your password?”, it asks. If you say “Yes”, it won’t tell you what it is – no way. But it will email you a secret message that says something like “This airhead has forgotten her password again, so to punish her, we won’t tell her what it is. She has to click here to start over, sign in again and dream up a brand new password. Heh-heh!” Tragically, however, you may never see this message because it will possibly be sent to an email account you also forgot the password to.

I cling to the hope that, soon, our unfriendly password disease will be once-and-for-all mercifully stomped out and replaced with the more humane thumbprints, eye scans, or facial recognition. Or – dare we hope – as soon as they can speed up DNA analysis, maybe we can just spit on the computer and get instant access. (I actually spit on it a lot, anyway.)

If you haven’t had enough yet, here’s one solution you might consider: