Tuesday, September 20, 2005

security flaw

There’s a little song I might never forget.  I learned it on the first day or so of junior high, out at the bike racks.  It goes like this: 16-34, 20!  16-34, 20!  I’ve never shared this tunelet with anyone, as far as I recall - because it was secret.  It was my combination, you see.  The combination to the MasterLock I used for my bicycle.  School lockers changed regularly enough that I didn’t retain those sequences any longer than I had to, but I used the same bike lock from the start of seventh grade till I went away to college, and every time I opened it, usually twice a day for months on end, I’d sing the combination to myself.  16-34, 20!  It was stuck in my head pretty seriously. It still is. 

Well, I recently learned the lyrics to a new song.  I didn’t have the tune in mind, but he libretto went like this: 24, 6-14! 24, 6-14! Not too catchy, I guess, without an accompanying score, but it was something to start with.  These, as it turned out, were the numbers for my new combination lock that I got for the lockers at the gym.  See, I go to the gym sometimes, and occasionally I feel the need to lock my stuff up there, okay?  Not everytime.  Net even very often.  I can usually just get home in my sweatsoaked exercise garb and avoid the whole locker room “scene,” such as it is or may be.  But sometimes I also like to shower or sauna at the gym and walk out of its broad glass doors not feeling and smelling so much like a sodden do-rag.  So sue me.  But don’t steal my stuff.  Because I locked it up, dude.  24, 6-14.  Click.

So I decided recently to check out a gym near my office, thinking that it might be a good place to get my RDA of vitamin schvitz once my life got turned upsidedown by an infantchild.  I walked in, selected a locker, got into my gear and locked my precious-s-s away, had myself a decent little workout, got all perspiry, went back to the locker room, took a shower, threw on my clothes again, and got the hell back to my desk.  Tha’s when I realized that I’d left my now unsung-locker room lock behind in that strange new locker room. And now it’s gone.

I’m very disappointed in myself.  My last lock, I kept for almost a decade of steady, hard use.  This one, I kept for less than a year and I barely used it at all.  Well, I have only myself to blame, and I guess I need to move on. 

I want to believe that if I can replace it with a lock that has a better, more danceable combination, it’ll prove to be more memorable when it really counts.  It makes no difference that I can remember the combination if I can’t remember the goddamn lock.