In one week I will be in a hotel room on the eve of the most important exam of my life. Irregardless, life must press on and that includes paying bills the torture of online banking, and blogging. Blogging?
For months I've been unable to get into one of my accounts online. I input the username that I've had for 7 years now, and that takes me on to the next level of security. Questions about my first car, my mother's birth city and the last school I attended taunt me. How many times have I called their customer service because I cannot get past the last school attended question. Number one reason for not getting a higher education: it simplifies this question immensely.
Today I miraculously got past the extra security questions to fail at the password. Why is it so hard for me to see what my balance is? I appreciate security, but is all this really necessary? Online banking should simplify my life, not complicate it. I call customer service and navigate through the labyrinth of sub menus for English, Existing Customer, Organ Donor, Brown Eyes, Right Handed etc etc to get placed in a queue for someone to reset my password.
Finally, a real, live, human being that geographically isn't even an hour from me! I explain the problem and she asks me if I'm using a bookmark. Um, okay, a bookmark relates to my password how? Delete the bookmark? Why? I highly doubt that my browser is redirecting the domain I've just typed into the address bar, at your direction, to my bookmark. Fine. Deleted.
Still not working and I'm still not surprised. What's that you say? My password has suddenly and magically been suspended? Imagine that. Oh, super, you're finally going to give me a temporary password. Isn't that what I asked for in the beginning? Now where's my bookmark? Thanks for that. Yes, it's logging in and asking for a new password that's a minimum of 8 characters long. (excessive maybe?)
You're still talking, and I'm still not caring but what's that you say? You've just told me to write down my password? Are you kidding? I am telling you it surprises me that you suggest I write down my password to my online banking account. Welcome to the 21st Century, You DON'T Do That. No. Never.
One more thing, you say? No, I don't want to do your stupid 4 question survey, I want to drop this account like a steaming pile of feces and go to a different bank that doesn't waste my time with more security procedures than they use to keep track of nuclear warheads.
Chester Drawers. Maybe you already know him? I've known him from a very young age.
You see, when I was a wee lad and I was learning to identify the objects around me I was faced with the tall drawer filled item of furniture in my bedroom. Its imposing size and exceptional functionality necessitated a name. Some people call this item a "dresser" which I would argue is incorrect for dressers are not so tall, but most people call it a "chest of drawers."
Perhaps you are unaware that the chest of drawers is actually named after Chester T. Drawers who invented the chest of drawers in 1483, late in the Middle Ages. Determined to find a better way to store the lovely filth that the peasants collected during that time, Chester broke all new ground abandoning baskets and revolutionizing the future of furniture with the aptly named Chest of Drawers.*
It wasn't until I was in my teens before I figured out what the proper name for this item of furniture was. I was simply paying homage to the inventor of such a useful and convenient storage solution. It made no sense to me why nobody understood what a chester drawers was and I thought they were all insane.
The question begs then, where did I learn this nomenclature? Perhaps surprisingly, my father, the school teacher. But that's not all I learned. I still like to ask for the Napoleon flavored ice cream whenever there's a birthday party. I must say, for being a short, dead French dude, his ice cream tastes pretty good.
I'm sure that virtually everyone has a mispronunciation or two like this in their past, and I hope that after reading this post, you've learned something valuable: Make sure to have a good back story ready to cover your apparent ignorance of your blatant mispronunciation. Without that, we're all just going to point and laugh.
* Not a single word of this is true. Didn't your mother tell you not to believe everything you read on the internet?
(photo from Stickley Furniture (www.stickley.com) - Chest of Drawers from the Metropolitan collection)
Oh, and Yes, I thought this was important enough to take a break from studying to post about. My judgment may be off though, considering that if one of my neighbors isn't keeping me up until 3AM with drunken loudness then the other neighbors are. Chester T. Drawers - Out.
