If you’re old enough that you still remember what a phone book and Facebook are, see if you can answer these questions:
Where are your house keys?
What’s the password to your Frequent Flyer account?
What’s the 6 digit code the airline just sent to your email so you can access your account, but can only retrieve if you close the window to your Frequent Flyer account?
What’s the log-in name for your US.gov account, which you need to log into your Social Security account, which you can only log into after punching in the code sent to your current cell phone number. Your US number? Your Peruvian number? Your defunct Skype number? Please say no.
Bonus Round for ExPats
How many days were you in the USA last year? What day did you leave your resident country? What day did you arrive?
Where did you take these photos that are on your phone? Is this where you lost your keys?
What is the current time zone of the last country you lived in?
What’s the PIN for your back account from that country that will not work unless you visit the branch in that country where you opened the account?
Is the amount of money you have in that account more than the round-trip airfare it will cost you to retrieve it?
What’s your FBG?
What is an is FBG?
In what year did you send your medical records from Bangkok to Lima?
Were they translated from Thai to English… or Thai to Spanish?
When does your driver’s license expire?
What’s the password to the Secretary of State page to renew your licence online?
Is that page impacted by the government shutdown?
What’s the baggage allowance for international round trips for the airline mentioned in the first question?
Super Challenge for Teachers
How do you convert your student’s Google slides into to Apple Keynote while you’re taking attendance in Powerschool?
How do you remove the glittery kitty meme on that student’s last slide?
What is your teacher number to make colored copies on the good printer?
OK.
If you’re still in a tizzy from these questions, you’re not alone.
Those were the mental gymnastics I endured Saturday morning, before beginning my mother lode of grading, only to discover the answer key for materials I purchased at Teachers Pay Teachers was wrong. It is my favorite place because there is plenty of room to play is not a topic sentence, Teaching Chicks from Texas, whoever you are. I sent them a scathing oemail demanding my money back, filled with supportive details.
I was never good at math but the numbers we have to know today make simplifying a quadratic equation seem like child’s play. I can still recall my childhood phone number (one that pre-dated area codes), but the seven digits to my Peruvian resident carnet? Forget it.
I do remember how to make kombucha or is it kumbucha (spelling this probiotic brew is another thing I can’t recall). The corks have been popping all weekend to ferment the brew that keeps me uh….pooping.
I also remember to shut my windows when I’m not home. Lima is a desert and if you forget to close up tight, the sand whips around your apartment like sugar in a cotton candy machine.
I also remember that when you see a donkey on a hiking trail, he has right-of-way.
If you passed this test, there will be a new one tomorrow, requiring you to remember all the passwords you wrote on scrap paper today because you couldn’t remember where your put your password book.
Your password book is probably with your house keys.
Oh, you did have a rough Saturday morning! Those were some mental gymnastics you had to do and I would have struggled, too. I love the donkey pics and your writing, Ginger!