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Broke Wife, Big City
My online life
is a hot mess
By Aprill Brandon
You know, it used to be back in my day (oh yes, I’m officially old
enough to use that phrase unironically now) that you were only in
charge of keeping one life in order. Or at least keeping it from
turning into a major dumpster fire. All you had to do was keep a roof
over your head (with only small-to-medium leaks tops), food in your
fridge (30 plus containers of old takeout completely qualifying) and a
little bit of money in the bank (at least $4) after paying all your
assorted bills.
Beyond that, if you really wanted to get fancy with your adulting, you
just needed health insurance, a pet (or kids, or anything that looks
cute in a tiny sweater) and a close circle of family and friends you
saw in person from time to time.
And I was doing a fairly decent job at keeping this one life in order.
I had kept my kids alive, had a non-expired driver’s license (I
think…?) and even paid taxes that one time.
But now? Pffft. Now we all have two lives.
Two.
Two lives we are in charge of keeping from imploding. And I don’t know
about you but I was barely keeping afloat with the one involving the
ancient lo mein noodles I just ate for breakfast.
My online life is a hot mess. Just completely in shambles. If it were a
house, it’d be featured on an episode of “Hoarders.” If it were a TV
character, it’d be Liz Lemon. If it were a celebrity breakdown, it’d be
2007 Britney Spears and 2013 Amanda Bynes COMBINED.
Take, for example, the fact I have multiple e-mail accounts, all of
which have thousands of unread e-mails because does anyone check their
e-mail anymore? And on the extremely rare occasion when I do check
them, all the thousands of unread e-mails stress me out so I
immediately log off and pretend it doesn’t exist. Until I get an alert
that someone has hacked my e-mail, in which case I will spend 25
frustrating minutes trying to change the password, only to finally be
successful and then immediately forget the new password. And some of
these e-mail accounts have my maiden name and some have my married name
and since I go by my maiden name it’s extremely confusing to everyone
and the whole thing makes me want to cry into a pile of stamps while
venting my frustrations to that Nigerian prince who is just super
understanding.
I have roughly 500,000 photos languishing in folders across 23
different devices (some of these devices dating back to almost 20 years
because, again, I is old). All of which I am likely never to see again
(and if I ever do, the bulk will be pictures of cheese and extreme
close-ups of my toddler’s nostrils).
In a similar vein, every piece of writing I’ve ever done since high
school is also spending time in technology purgatory, trapped forever
on old computers that belong in a sad, old person museum instead of the
corner of my attic.
I have three Skype accounts. Three. Because I kept forgetting what I
put as my username (unicornglitter_96? mermaidsugarpants?) and it was
just easier to start a new account than trying to hack into my old
account. Added bonus, if you held a gun to my head right now and asked
for just one of my Skype usernames, I’d be dead instantly
(joel_mchales_wife321?).
I have ancient accounts on MySpace and LinkedIn and Tumblr and
Pinterest and Path and Vine that I haven’t deleted yet because frankly,
I don’t know how nor care to learn.
Even watching TV now requires a password thanks to Hulu and Netflix and
HBO Go (HBO Now? HBO I’m only here for “Game of Thrones”?). Passwords I
never, ever remember. Nor does my husband. Leaving us both to look
franticly for that Post-It I wrote down all the passwords on which we
can never, ever find.
Instagram. Amazon. Twitter. Snapchat. Facebook (which guilt trips me
into wishing 1,378 people I don’t know a happy birthday!!!!!! Emoji
cake! Emoji martini! Emoji poop!).
All a mess.
Sigh.
And the hackers. Oh, the hackers. They love me. Because I am the
perfect combination of lazy and technologically incompetent. At this
point, I am on a first name basis with Todd, the dude in charge of
identity theft at my credit card company.
In my defense, it is fairly easy to let your online life get out of
control considering it’s out there floating in Internet space or
whatever and not in your fridge gathering mold and possibly a
conscience. Out of sight, out of mind and whatnot.
But I really should try to get my technology house in order. And I
will. Right after I find that stupid Post-It with all the passwords on
it.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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