I woke early to try and wrap my brain around all the apps and online ways I now have to pay. Places closed or demanding you pay virtually. I’m still a check writer. Because I’m basically 18. Maybe 19. Except I’m 42. I’ve successfully managed a checking account for 2 years. That’s all. Before that I successfully managed nothing. I just managed. Barely.
My electric company never remembers my password. I use the same one whenever I can except for the various variations some require of a number of special character. When you go to create them I like to know up front the rules. The password rules. I like it when the rules turn green and check off that I’ve added one upper case, a number and a symbol. I like it when it says it’s strong. That no one will ever guess it, including the app that knows it. And myself. I keep my passwords in my notes. But they always say I’m wrong. So I reset it. Always. Then a change it to the same thing and it says it can’t be a password I’ve used before. This program is a little too smart for its own good. Just a few minutes ago it didn’t accept what it is now telling me it was. So I change the character. Then the next time I can’t remember which character I change it to. You only get 3 guesses then it locks you out with red flashing warnings around your password telling you you don’t remember anything! I reset it again.
I don’t want to pay bills. I don’t want to be a first grade teacher, or a special education teacher, an occupational therapist, or speech therapist. I want to be mom. One single day of getting a first grader to do math was enough to make me miss work. She did it. But it’s on an app and I navigate apps like a first grader. We are learning together. Who is teaching who here?
My daughter with special needs just kind of wonders around waiting for me to remember she isn’t supposed to be at home all day. Don’t I know she is supposed to be at school. She asks over a hundred times a day when she is going to school. It never lessens. She asks more each day. She loves to be out in real life. In her community adding things up on her calculator in the store and socializing. She isn’t a virtual navigator. She touches screens with people on them to see if she can pluck them out and put them next to her. Making the screen change. Where did all her people go?
My son sleeps. Just all day. I actually felt relieved that someone else told me his teenager is doing the same thing. I’m not failing. He will correct it. He has before and he will again. He had his first heart break and when that happens it’s the most important and only heart break he will ever feel yet just the first of hundreds to come.
I felt panic coming on. Like the knot in my throat panic. I knew it was coming. My heart said so. I didn’t sleep. I was too worried about a deposit that for no reason shouldn’t be going in to my account but my mind managed to create a scenario where it didn’t so I checked my account too many times through the night and eventually my account said I had checked too many times and exhausted it. My bank app needs to rest at night apparently. By 2 am it hadn’t gone in. I surrendered to a miserable sweat burdened sleep and woke and it had magically appeared at some point.
Now I can’t pay bills because I can’t remember all my passwords. Or they don’t recognize them. I tried to set one up and failed at the robot questions. I panic over these silly squiggle numbers and pictures in boxes that want to know if I’m human. Is that a crosswalk? It seems to be the corner of one. Should I select it? That’s a taillight of a car there? Does that count as a whole car? Why didn’t they clarify if they want to know about whole cars? Who makes this program? A human or a robot? Maybe we should test them? The squiggle letters are just as nightmarish for me. I will just turn off what I’m doing and avoid trying to guess if it is a capital t or even a t at all because it’s too close to the z and it looks like it could be a lower case l with the z making me think it’s a t. I’m not human? Or maybe I’m too human?
I haven’t googled the news or even googled. But I need to shave my cat so I googled. It was funny that when I started to type will the hair grow back…the top search was for a cat. So I went down a rabbit hole about cat shaving. People have actually asked the internet if cats enjoy this? One site told me to start with a calm cat and to whisper reassuring soothing noises to him to make him calm. Cat whispering. They all cautioned about the thinness of cats skin. That’s why they have hair. Will she be cold? Should I get her a sweater for when this is done? Her hair is matted so bad it is hurting her. Why did it mat so bad? Am I not properly grooming her? Isn’t that her only job as a cat? To groom herself? It says I should be. I’m not a cat whisperer. I’m not even a whisperer. Or a groomer. My cat would panic if all of a sudden I held her and whispered sweet nothings to her. She would think something is about to happen. Which it is. I’m going to remove all her matted hair and expose her too thin skin. Without cutting her skin and puncturing vital organs inside. I’ll just tell her that.
I liked that the tools to de-Matt a cat are called dematting rakes. As I’m reading this she is laying on my legs purring softly. I’m going to rake my cat. Is that what proper grooming is?
I shut down google before somehow cat dematt raking lead me to the virus somehow. That’s how a rabbit hole works. It doesn’t.
I can’t do anything today but first grade math. That’s it. I can’t get any bills paid! No one is open to let me pay. No one knows my passwords including me.
Aspenleaf 