WHEN I WAS A BOY

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/28/08)

When I was a boy, even before I struggled with the multiplication table, I had to learn numbers, my parents’ telephone number and our street number and name. Then, as a teenager, I had to learn my Social Security number, my savings account number, and my checking account number. Once in the army I had to learn my army serial identification number and my rifle number, simultaneously, a real feat for someone numerically dyslectic.

I thought I was all numbered up until I was hit by the cyber and identity theft age. I can’t keep all my pin numbers straight. I tried to standardize them but was advised against it because it might compromise my security and subsequent identity. Now, on a small lined, yellow pad next to my computer I have written all my secret passwords. Then I got phished and had to trot down to the bank to get a whole new set of numbers and secret passwords much to my chagrin and that polite contempt known only to bankers.

Then, other day while making a deposit at my bank, a well-mannered, pretty young woman cheerily asked me for my secret password. At first, I said that I didn’t have one. Then a kindly woman supervisor who knew me by face and name rescued me, telling me that I had one and must’ve forgotten it. What a relief! Somebody knew who I was. I hope next time they don’t ask me for my name or worse yet ask “Who are you?”

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2008