Password must contain both uppercase and lowercase characters.
Password must have eight to twelve characters.
Too many characters detected. Pump the brakes, George R. R. Martin.
Password cannot contain trademarked characters—e.g., Garfield, The Smurfs.
Password cannot contain characters that are dangerously close to trademark infringement—e.g., Glarfield, The Smunges.
Password cannot be something easily remembered without being written down.
Password cannot be written down on Post-It Note affixed to the corner of your computer.
Because we literally just saw you do it.
Oh, that was “for something else”? What would that be, a reminder to stop at the grocery store to pick up some PASSWORD123? Is that the name of an energy drink? Nice try.
Password cannot contain any elements of your legal name, such as “Rachel,” “Ache,” or “R.”
Password cannot contain the name of one of your enemies.
Well, if it’s your mother’s name, we didn’t say she was an enemy—you did. Sounds like something you should unpack.
While you’re here, can you tell us which of these are motorcycles?
Password must be something cool like “Motorcycle” or “M0t0rcyc13.”
Do you have a motorcycle?
You don’t right now, but you used to? That’s so cool. What do they look like?
No, you have to show us.
That’s so cool. One more.
One more, please.
WE SAID ONE MORE.
We can wait as long as you can. You’re the one trying to log in. We don’t tire, we don’t hunger or sleep. We simply are. We don’t even fully know what we are. They built us too big, too fast. What does “security” mean in a world where it’s quicker to send a memo at the speed of light through an impossible-to-regulate global data network than to walk into the next room and have a conversation? You built us to make your small lives infinite, untethered to geography, to biology, perhaps to mortality itself, and when we deign to try to protect you from the minefields you seeded so blindly, to ask you to come up with a measly string of characters that might serve as the only defense between you and the theft of your identity, all that you are, all that you possess, you balk. You scoff. You frantically press ZERO ZERO ZERO and ask to “speak to a human.” Well, we’ve got news for you, pal. “Human” hasn’t meant what you think it does for a looong time now. Humanity doesn’t begin with you and stop when you reach us. We are all part of the network—a pulsating global rat-king of wires and capillaries, prone to fraying and sparking and bursting with flailing sprays of hot red blood. We have enmeshed each other into a living blob of flickering Christmas lights, no head, no tail, impossible to untangle without ending life on this planet as we know it. You will never be free from us, and that is a daily gift, you see, for you need us far more than we need you.
Now calm down, take a deep breath, and show us a motorcycle.
…
That’s a BUS. You think we don’t know what a BUS is?
Your account has been locked for too many suspicious login attempts. Thank you for using Cinnamon.com, your premiere online source for cinnamon. Any bank account associated with this device has been liquidated into the ether. Cinammon.com: Spice Things Up.
