A Public Service Announcement

Don't make the same mistake I made. 

I had a (stupid) in-home accident one day last week (that's not the mistake, by the way, it's Standard Operating Procedure around these parts), and by the next morning my friends had convinced me that I needed to see a doctor to "have it checked out."  I wasn't surprised to learn that my own physician wasn't in that day, so I needed to search for another doctor who is in my plan (a qualification that these days is more important, apparently, than whether said physician is Board-certified in his/her specialty, conveniently located, has a pulse, etc.). 

Our insurance company maintains an online list of in-plan providers.  In order to access this list, you have to "register," which involves providing identifying information, and selecting a user name and password.

I can't remember when I originally registered at this site, but with my affected body part screaming in pain and watching the clock tick down to the weekend (when all good specialists disappear to their weekend homes), I couldn't get my password to work.  And, with a password required to do just about anything on the Internet these days, I long ago stopped writing them down.

But that's not the mistake either.

You're in a hurry, your fingers are flying, this site is asking for a combination of six letters and two numbers, while the other site asked for both upper AND lower case letters, but not any of your last 12 passwords.  You're out of birthdays, kids' and pets' names and you don't think you can possibly think of another unique password, and you want it to be memorable, but you're feeling kind of aspirational.

And therein lies my mistake.  Because I lacked forethought, I didn't think about the fact that there are SO MANY possible ways to misspell Hoochi-Mama.