I memorize the basics

I'm tired of memorizing things.

I had to do it all throughout school: dates, names, facts, equations, formulas, chemical compounds...you name it, it had to be memorized in order to pass the tests.

And then, entering into the digital age (because, yes, I went to school BEFORE there was an internet...so all you kids mocking my age can just get off my lawn and go home and listen to your rock music), there emerged a new round of things to memorize: PINs and passwords.

Now, for the most part, PINs (or Personal Identification Numbers) aren't so bad to deal with. At least you can pick your own (sometimes). Internet passwords, however? That's a whole other story.

Password requirements may feature one or more (or all) of the following:

1. The password must be a minimum number of characters in length (typically 6 or 8), and occasionally a maximum as well.
2. It must contain at least one capital letter (or uppercase letter, to those of you on the new school system...those are the talls ones, okay? You use those when you write your "LOLs" and your "BFFs" and such.).
3. Throw in a number or two for good measure (hey, if you know pi to 64 decimal places, why not use a few of them for this purpose?).
4. New twist: put some symbols in there, too, such as "=" or "$" or "???" (funny trick: if you put a bunch of the symbols together, you can spell out your frustration in the form of a bad word, and no one will even know!).
5. Crucial step: your password cannot be something that can be easily figured out by another human being...which means you can't understand it, either.
6. Final, and most important, step: don't write your password down, because that makes it too easy for someone to steal it...and for you to remember it. But don't worry, you'll need to change it again in 15 days anyway to something even more ridiculous, so why waste the paper and ink?

Now, what lessons can we take away from this requirements list? Well, the underlying messages are:

• Forget everything you ever learned in school, because you're going to need that brain space to memorize your passwords.
• Don't carry a cheat sheet with you, because if you are struck down in the middle of the street and someone takes that sheet, they can hack into your online poker game and pretend to be you and play for fake money. Nobody wants that on their conscience.

If those lessons aren't to your liking, then do what you gotta do...and try out that bad word thing if you can.

It'll make you feel better...probably.