Okay, so I like to think that I’m a reasonably intelligent person. I can drive a car. I’ve read over two thousand books. I have been blogging for nearly a decade and a half. Why can’t I figure out this password thing? My brother has a blog on WordPress too. His posts are quite different than mine, but I always like to read them since we think a lot alike. Anyway, I wanted to leave a comment on a recent post he wrote. You’d think that’d be easy since this blog is also hosted on WordPress. (I’m the one who suggested WordPress to him.) When I went to post the comment I received a dialog box basically asking “and who might you be?” When I gave my web credentials it wanted a password, but it wasn’t clear which password it wanted.
An actual word press; image credit: DANIEL CHODOWIECKI 62 bisher unveröffentlichte Handzeichnungen zu dem Elementarwerk von Johann Bernhard Basedow. Mit einem Vorworte von Max von Boehn. Voigtländer-Tetzner, Frankfurt am Main 1922, public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Like most human beings alive today I have more passwords than atoms in a typical tardigrade. With a brain over sixty, trying to recollect them all in an instant, well, let’s just say that ain’t happenin’. As I laboriously lumber through all relevant passwords (I’m pretty sure they don’t want all the unique ones I use at work, in addition to my private accounts), it rejects each and every one. You see, WordPress is funny. My own account, now 14 years old—maybe that’s the problem—those teenage years!—doesn’t recognize me at times. Indeed, on my own blog (and I have a paying account) it sometimes blinks its virtual eyes and says, “and who might you be?” I try not to take this personally. I mean, we’ve only known each other for years. And all I want to do is put a supportive comment on my brother’s blog—we share the same surname, and even the same web host. What could be so difficult about that?
I’m pretty much logged into my WordPress account constantly. I post every day. There’s over 5,300 mini-essays of about 400 words. That’s over 2 million words. Is this relationship really so one-sided? I’m trying hard not to let my aporripsophobia get the best of me here. Just tell me which password you want! And, if I can use it to log into my own WordPress account, why won’t it work for the WordPress accounts of family and friends when I want to make a comment? We’ve been together for so long, do you really not know me any better than this? Hey, I think I need a private moment with WordPress—you can check out my brother’s blog while you wait…
