Oh goodie! We now have another number to add to our long and growing list of numbers and passwords needed to survive in our electronically connected world.

As of October 24, when you make a local call in the 607-area code you must include the area code when dialing. The reason: officials don’t want people mistakenly dialing the newly created 988 national Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

I’m all for reducing suicides, but I can’t deal with adding another number to my swirling sea of digits, passwords, pass codes, PINS, logons, WIFI, license plates, phone numbers, Social Security cards, DOBs, zip codes and the points spread in today’s St. Louis Rams game.

For security reasons, we’re told to commit all these meaningless, random numbers, letters and special characters to memory. Sorry, but the average person – me being one of them - cannot do that. Hell, I can’t remember my cell phone number, because I rarely call myself. When I do, I don’t answer, because it’s probably another robocall. That’s why I wrote my number on the back of my phone. I try to use a simple, easy to remember password, but the website says “Nope.” It must be at least eight characters long and include numbers, punctuation, upper- and lower-case letters, Hieroglyphics, holograms, gang signs, pi to the 120th digit and that weird symbol used by the artist formerly known as Prince.

There is simply no way a person can remember hundreds of unique long and complex passwords. I spend most of my online time clicking “forgot password” links. To make the impossible demand on human memory even more impossible, we’re told not to write down our passwords.

Yeah, right. I never do what I’m told. I have more passwords and secret ID numbers than all the James Bonds, Maxwell Smarts and Austin Powers combined.

I write them in notebooks, random slips of paper, envelopes, magazine margins, checkbook, the wall next to my computer, my dog’s flea collar, the back of my hand and the grocery list attached to the fridge with a magnet.

I signed up for an online service that saves and retrieves all my passwords in a protected file. I can’t access the file, because (you guessed it) I forgot the password.

I’m going to use this tip that I found on the Internet: change my password to “Incorrect.” Then when I erroneously enter it, my computer will tell me that my password is “incorrect.”

When I forget my password and username, I get nervous while trying to logon because I have only three chances to get it right.

Worse, I can’t see what I’m typing because the letters are converted into those silly little stars, in case a snoop is standing behind trying to steal my password. How about this security idea: I spin around, stand up and tell the idiot to “get the **** outta here or you’re going to be seeing stars!”

On my first login attempt, I try one of my commonly used passwords and usernames. The computer flashes the dreaded red letter “incorrect” warning. I shake my head and cuss under my breath. I try a different password. It’s correct, buy my username isn’t. The computer slaps me a second time. I cuss out loud. By the third attempt, I carefully search my mind’s memory banks until I shout, “I got it! I remember the password.” I take a deep breath, wipe my sweaty palms on my pants and slowly and carefully type each character, one at a time, but miss the “shift” button on an uppercase letter and its three strikes and “yer out!” (Sometimes, I can actually hear the computer laughing at me).

Now I have to reset my password and go through the hassle of checking my e-mail for the reset code, typing it in and creating a new password. By the time I do all that my laptop battery is dead.

I get a new code and enter it just as my phone rings. I answer it and by the time I hang up, the pass code as expired. I get so angry that my blood pressure spikes, and I fear that I’m going to expire. I jump up screaming and leaping around like a lemur on crack. (Another snoop standing behind me flees in wide-eyed terror). When I do reset my password, the computer scolds me for not creating one complicated enough. (i.e., One that hackers can’t guess, and I can’t remember). If I do remember my username and password – and type them correctly – I have to answer a security question, like “What was your favorite food as a child?”

“Oh shit,” I say. “I think I said ‘pizza.’ No, wait! It’s fried chicken or maybe pork chops? Oh God. Why did I choose that question?” Many times, when asked to create a password, I use one of my old passwords, but the computer tells me I can’t because “It’s been used.” 

“No shit, Sherlock!” I shout at my screen as I pound on the keyboard. “It’s used because it’s mine. Gimme the $@>+^* thing back!”

This is usually followed by my wife shouting, from the other room, “What’s all the yelling about? Are you trying to logon again?”

Look, we all agree that the password and ID number systems don’t work. There must be better means of authentication. Why can’t we use our fingerprints, the capillaries in our eyes or dental records as our universal passwords? I’m going to suggest that to Microsoft officials in an e-mail.

As soon as I remember my Microsoft password, username and the name of my favorite pet.

Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Star-Gazette newspaper.