As you've probably gathered from other posts, my mom is the quintessential cop-turned-overprotective parent. Hence why Brian and I received matching emergency hammers for Christmas....in case we ever need to break our windshield from inside the car, DUH. She also does fun things like force me to stay on the phone with her until I'm inside my house ("Is your alarm on? Is your door locked?"), as if I don't complete this feat the other 364 days of the year all by my baby-self. I could go on.
The paranoia was born in a petri dish of bad experiences with criminals, but it blossomed into a whole new animal when she got her identity stolen about 10 years ago. Someone started a credit card in her name and, although it was a pain in the arse to fix, she lived to tell the story so no harm no foul, right? NO. To this day, she refuses to keep any credit cards (check or cash, anyone?) and she is extremely ticky about reading important numbers over the phone. The last time she had to give me a bank account number, she called me from a land line, read a few numbers, then hung up, called me from her cell phone, read the next few numbers, and so on. One time she read a sequence of numbers in chunks and then told me what order to put the chunks in to make the number read correctly.
Although I'm sure it sounds like it, she is not certifiable, by any means. I think she just subscribes to the "fool me once" mentality, and shame on her if she gets fooled again! So, to the point, this week I had to extract her social security number from her for some paperwork. I knew she'd feel like she was throwing her Hope diamond straight into a headwind, so I was excited to see what she would come up with in response. If you think she even touched the phrase "social security number" in her email, you're wrong. May I introduce you to Mom Code?
Take the first number of yours and write that number down.
Write it down again.
Take the second number of yours and add four. Write it down.
Now write that number down again.
Take the third number of yours and subtract the first number on yours. Write that number down.
Take the second number of yours and subtract the fourth number of yours. Write that number down.
Double the fifth number of yours. Write that number down.
Take the first number of yours and subtract one from it. Write that number down.
Take the third number of yours and subtract two from it. Write that number down.
Hack that, hackers! Except don't because then I'd be in trouble.
Plus, because I am the spawn of Queen Paranoia, obviously I changed the numbers :)
4 comments:
oh my gosh - i totally meant to tell you this. but last week, one of our technology analysts was doing a tutorial about cell phone technology. apparently, any cell phone that's been made after like 2005 has impossible-to-hack encryption technology. i wish i could remember some of the terms, but basically the reason you don't really hear in the news any more about people hacking info from cell phone lines is that it's basically impossible. like, a cell phone is more protected than a land line.
hysterical.
ahahahahaha. this is even more intense than some of the things jeanie's done in the past (like cut off her address on magazines before giving them to us in memphis so no one could steal her info from the address label).
bhahahhahahahahha. amazing. at least she makes it entertaining :)
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