I pause to consider the news of Italian town on the brink of the abyssI press the button to read it. But, oh dear, a banner alerts me: if I'm a subscriber, I have to sign up. My session must have expired. I breathe like a goalkeeper facing a penalty kick. The website asks me to enter my phone number or email address. Since I have two email addresses, or maybe twelve, and I don't know which one to use, I go with the right one. The phone number, fortunately, is still the same, because the last time I lost it, a kind soul sent it to me. The phone number is correct. Then, it asks for my password.
Damn. If we were on my laptop (but it's broken), the password would enter itself. But not here. It asks for it. What will it be? Not that original one that consisted of four numbers. Now they want letters and numbers, uppercase and lowercase. Don't tell me, readers, that I should have signed up. Just read.
I type the first thing that comes to mind. The name I imagine I typed and a number, what I imagine I typed. And after a few seconds, eureka! I can finally read the news about the landslide. The password is correct. I could have been chopping wood, I could have been making a casserole of meatballs, I could have been doing anything that would make a good plot for a heroic tale. Nothing, nothing compares to having typed the right password. I've lost count of the countless times I've gotten it wrong and the site has kicked me out, told me I'm a criminal, worse than the fish they throw in the park or the spam that goes straight to the recycle bin. I'm heroic, I'm a warrior, I'm empowered, I'm a computer whiz. Today I've made my day. And it doesn't matter that I don't remember it anymore, that password I just got right.
