The Password

The Laugh

For my daughter to participate in her online classroom, I had to get her set up in Microsoft Teams.  I figured this would be no problem; I have used Office before, a piece of cake.  Except, I did this while multitasking, so I did not give this my full attention.  She and I created a fun password for her (I thought this would be fun – spoiler alert- this did not have a good outcome).  I also set up security questions but didn’t pay attention to that either because I opted into the “remember password” option the computer offered.

Two weeks later, the online sessions started.  So, the Sunday night before, at around 10 pm, I tried to log in to check to make sure we were ready to go in the morning.

I forgot the unique and new password I was proud of.  The piece of paper I wrote it down on was now long gone.  No problem, I clicked the reset password option.  Up came the security questions.  Remember, I picked these and set them up.  They were (this is a student account):  1.  Where was your mom born? (the mom here is me) 2.  What is your Dad’s middle name? (this is my husband) and 3. What is the name of your favorite stuffie?

Here is how I screwed this up:

1.     I could not remember if I put city and province or just city or just province (three possible combinations)?

2.     My husband goes by his middle name, but “what is your husband’s first name” is a security question for another password reset.  I repeatedly entered his first name because I ran on an autopilot setting that prevented me from READING the question.  The question was, “What is your husband’s middle name.”

3.     I could not remember which stuffie we used and then could not remember how to spell new-new (don’t ask).  Was it Nu-Nu, NuNu, or nu-nu, New-New or new-new?  There are several combinations here.

 So, after several attempts at answering basic questions about my life that I was supposed to know and too many wrong combinations, I got locked out of my daughter’s Microsoft account.  For 24 hours.  Her online class was 11 hours away.  After some self-talk that included some choice words (“Are you @%$# kidding me!”), I had to send an embarrassing email to her teacher explaining that I failed my own security questions and then had to ask her to invite my daughter to the meeting using her younger sister’s Microsoft account.  This also had to be shared with the tech support team from her school.  In the morning, my daughter was not impressed to be logged in as her younger sister.  She was equally unimpressed when she could not use the chat or the other functions because she was logged in as her sister and was, therefore, a guest in the class.  But at least she got to participate (when you are in grade three, it is very embarrassing to be logged in as your sister in grade one).  Mom was in the doghouse for sure.  The kicker to all of this was that I logged in on our desktop on Sunday night, but we used a laptop on Monday morning.  The laptop I did the initial set-up on.  The computer that had “remembered” the password for my daughter’s Microsoft account.  So, not only did I fail my security questions, but I had also failed to remember that I set up my daughter the laptop to foolproof things, so I did not have to remember anything.  But I forgot everything!  I want to say this is due to the pressures of COVID-19, but those close to me would disagree – this is just me at my idiosyncratic best.

The Lesson

• We are all trying to do our best for our families and our kids.  We’re not going to get it right all of the time.  Right now, there is courage in dusting ourselves off, owning our screw-ups, and showing up for more.

• Karen Eddington’s Ted Talk (14 min) The Connecting Power of Shared Laughter encourages us to be honest with each other, celebrate our flaws, and laugh together to create community and mitigate mental isolation.

• According to this article, people who laugh together like each other more.  Also noted is that shared laughter signals that we see the world in the same way, which is an integral part of the story of relationships. 

The Iteration (i.e., how to make it better next time)

• Write your passwords down in a notebook or on the notes app on your phone.