Locked Out of My Own Life
Threats of identity theft prompt personal questions that can stymie the best of us
- By Julia Anne Miller
- Smithsonian magazine, October 2011, Subscribe
I just flunked my bank’s identity test. You know, the one that interrogates you about your life. I failed to identify my favorite cousin, former address and the name of my maternal grandfather. I’m sure that the person monitoring my efforts thought I was either an identity thief or a complete imbecile.
The problem is, I lost my cheat sheet, a ratty piece of paper on which I had scrawled cryptic clues to my user names and passwords. It looks like a string of comic book obscenities: “Xxxxxx###,” “Xxx@#Xx,” “X##%@#xx!” The clues are phrases like “snack food dot high school home room number” or “not dog under ’70s license plate,” which stand for Combos.223 and KiTTy_982K59, respectively. Mostly, these complex constructions succeeded only in locking me out of my own life.
Which is why, when I am confronted with questions such as the name of my first pet, I am stymied. Are we counting the turtle I had for three weeks before it died? Or the deformed hamster rescued from a research lab? For favorite food, are we talking about when I’m counting calories or eating leftover chocolate cake for breakfast? And as for the city I’d most like to visit, is it Machu Picchu, perched high in the Peruvian mountains (my choice years ago), or a flat Midwestern metropolis, since I now suffer from bad knees?
Then there are those made-up, spam-filtering words that look like they went through the washing machine. No matter how much I squint, I fail to interpret “WaDdle09” or “Sluggert55” as anything but a line of scribbles. Then I find myself yelling at the computer: “C’mon, give me one more try. Let me buy a vowel. Can I phone a friend? State Capitals? I’ll take hometowns for $500.”
Of course one could always take the streamlined approach and choose the same password for every account. This was my strategy for many years. Oh yeah, good ole “IP4395,” my aunt’s old license plate number, which I read as “I pee for $3.95.” It was my favorite joke when I was 8 years old. That one served me well. But after reading too many articles on identity theft, I was scared straight and devised a system so complex that it denied me access to my own bank account.
In fact, I managed to access it only after surrendering my Social Security number to a supervisor and explaining that the name of my favorite cousin changes almost weekly, that I’d changed residences several times and that my mother’s father was a scoundrel we try to forget.
The supervisor asked if I wanted to choose new security questions. I told her no, that I was investing in a memory improvement seminar so that as long as I can always remember who I am today, I can always become a different person tomorrow.
Now, if I could only find that ratty piece of paper.
Julia Anne Miller is a writer and performer based in Brooklyn, New York, whose essays have appeared in Salon.
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Comments (7)
Loved this article. You may think this post is a little late, but it is a testament to the power of print. I have a Smithsonian issue in almost every room in the house. Rarely does a copy hit the recycling bin. My 27 year old son shares my love of the printed version. We often discuss the articles we've read. I'm sure he laughed and said that's Mom when he read it.
Posted by Jane Hazard on March 7,2012 | 11:33 PM
Too true! Ah, modern life. Sigh. My father-in-law told me last Christmas that the NSA recommends not answering any of those questions with true info about yourself. That way if someone does find and decipher your ratty cheat sheet or break into your account, they don't have access to all the intimate details of your life. That seems kind of logical and smart, but I think the chances of me remembering (or guessing) a whole other slate of faux info is even slimmer than just remembering my past pets and addresses... Sheesh.
Posted by Christine on October 28,2011 | 01:25 PM
I laughed so hard that I actually had tears in my eyes.I don't know if that's a peculiarity of mine but it happens only when I read or hear something extremely funny. That article certainly was one of the funniest I have ever read.I have often tried to remember where I put that "ratty piece of paper".
Posted by richard dalena on October 12,2011 | 02:18 PM
Hilarious and already shared with others. One person I know uses hints like "what was the name of your materal grandmother?" and uses the answer of "Grandmother." When I questioned him on this, he said, "What? That's what I called her."
Posted by Kendra on October 4,2011 | 10:05 PM
Hilarious take on hitting the security walls we construct ourselves!
Posted by MFM on October 3,2011 | 03:21 PM
Is this the best you've got? My first experience reading your magazine online and am very surprized that this article is considered worthy for your magazine. No WOW here.
Posted by na on September 29,2011 | 09:01 AM
My teenage son taught me an easy way to remember the answers to all my security questions: answer all of them with the same word. Name of your first pet? Whatever Mother's maiden name? Whatever City where you were born? Well... You get the picture now. (By the way, pick a word other than "whatever".)
Posted by Tim Hodge on September 24,2011 | 04:30 PM