Cautionary Tale

 

(Back in 1936, when SS#s first appeared, people thought it would be a swell idea to tattoo them onto an arm. )

I’ve just spent a phenomenal amount of time on the phone with a rep from CitiBank. That’s okay – it’s a rainy day and the biggest thing on my agenda will be a nap later.

          Last week I’d received a form letter from them regarding my LLBean Mastercard saying they were missing information on the account. This is my back-up credit card, almost never used (I’m finding Bean’s prices to be remarkably high. No, I don’t want to spend $45 for a tee shirt.) except for emergencies. It did come in handy a couple of years ago when the card we actually use was compromised.

          The whole “to avoid disruption to your card services, please log in, etc.” had me a little nervous, so decided to go online and check the account, see if I could pop in whatever information they were looking for.

          Except I couldn’t get into the account. No surprise, since I’ve never needed to before. I called customer service and a nice lady named Cynthia and I wound our way through the labyrinth, and wound our way, and wound our way. But no luck. She’s going to send my problems on to the IT boys and I’ll give it another shot next week.

          We hit so many responses of incorrect information that I even began doubting if I was remembering the last four digits of my SS# correctly. Thankfully, My Guy knows my number as well as I know his, so he verified that no, I hadn’t transposed the numbers. (I think his number is seared into my brain better than my own after his years in the Army; it seemed anything on base required me to reel them off before buying or doing anything.)

          So, as my synapses start slowing down and the arteries turn to concrete, what to do about this vital number? Should I write my SS# down? Where would be safe? I’m reminded of the book Still Alice, a frightening story if ever there was one. She’d thought she’d created a fail-safe way to ensure that she could still access vital information, but then forgot how to work through the steps after all.