by George Dimitriadis

Created on: July 08, 2008   Last Updated: November 16, 2008

Gone are the days when you would walk into a bank to hear a friendly human ask you, "How much do you wish to withdraw today, Mr Jenkins?" and be farewelled with a gift of a money box. Blessed were the days when you did not have to have a doctorate in electronics to configure and use the myriad of devices ostensibly designed to make one's life easier. There should be a caveat with every purchase warning of the stress and mental fatigue inherent in any attempt to try to come to terms with the fine art of programming remote controls, DVD players and TV sets.

Yes, I yearn for the proverbial good old days, at least as far as technology is concerned.
Today was one of those days.
Losing my battle of indigestion with a pizza dinner the previous night, I was unable to sleep. Not wishing to interrupt the orchestral dulcet tones my wife's snoring produced, I quietly got up and, in the darkness, tiptoed barefoot into the kitchen to seek a cure for my overindulgence.
I realised, just as I took my first bite of the leftover pizza, that I did not turn off the alarm that senses burglar activity in this part of the house. The alarm is silenced by entering a four digit code via the alphanumeric touchpad before the 40 second amnesty period elapses.
You might ask, as I often do of my wife, what riches await a potential thief in our kitchen? Perhaps my pizza?
I quickly shuffled to the touchpad and managed within a few seconds to input PEPA -the name of our dog. A flashing red light tauntingly indicated a still active alarm. Damn! Thirty seconds! I tried SALO, our cat. No luck. "What is the code?" I cursed, and tried to think of the names of other domesticated animals residing in our home. Ten seconds! Do I wake the wife? Too late. In desperation, I managed to enter STO and my index finger was on its downward journey to P when a loud siren suddenly blared, announcing the beginning of an eventful day.
"The password is ABCD," my wife reminded me at breakfast. "Don't you remember? You wanted something easy?" she added, rather curtly I thought.
"When was it changed?" I asked innocently.
"Yesterday, when you left for the office. I sent you an email about it? Didn't you get it?" she asked in her best interrogative style.
"Our server was being upgraded. Security and all that," I lied. If the truth be known, more than a week ago - in a fit of paranoia and on advice from the systems administrator- I changed my various passwords but promptly forgot which password went with each logon request. Hence,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>