TheBanyanTree: Back to the Future

[trebro at att.net]

I have always had a habit of changing e-mail address on a fairly regular
basis, for whatever reason.

That's happened in record time in this case, as I move from Yahoo to one of
Liz's spare ATT accounts.

Allow me to share how this happened...

Liz and I moved in together back in June. As with a lot of couples, we brought
duplicates of things together to the new apartment. While it's good to have
extra pans in the kitchen and a few more blankets, it's not necessarily good
to keep two different ISPs.

We did that for several months, until I finally decided that my reason for
keeping Earthlink wasn't good enough to justify paying the money I could just
as easily use for other things, like feeding my comic book habit.

So, about three weeks ago or so, I switched from Earthlink to using a Yahoo
adddress, because Liz's ISP was cheaper. Life was good, and I got to get those
extra comics.

Until Thursday.

On Thursday morning, I checked my Yahoo mail from work, read a few e-mails,
deleted a few, and made one reply. About 30 minutes later, I checked again. My
boss wasn't around, I was working on a sucky project, and hey, you never know
what you're going to get in the mail.

"Invalid password."

WHAT?

I tried again.

"Invalid password."

Okay, I give up, what's the deal? I went to the "forgot your password?" link,
even though I hadn't forgotten it at all.

I get through the mess of options, tell Yahoo the stuff I think they know
about me (I hate their incessant need for personal info), and click.

"This account has been de-activated." 

There's only two ways that happens--one is to ask, and the other is to do a
TOS violation.

I knew I hadn't done the first, and I was pretty darned sure I hadn't done the
other, either.

So I get into their feedback stuff and ask for help. In the meantime, I try
really hard to get back to my work project, but I'll be honest, my mind's on
the e-mail issue.

I get a very automated reply back, telling me that if the password stuff
doesn't work, then I'm going to need to give Yahoo even MORE private details
of my life to get them to look at it, and MAYBE they'll be able to help.

I know a scam when I see one.

So, for over a day, I was homeless on the internet. I could not send anyone a
single piece of personal mail. 

I drifted in cyberspace, able to web browse, and post to forums, but not do a
thing in terms of mailing lists or even a note to Mom.

By the time I started scribbling a "will work for e-mail" sign on a stray
kilobyte, Liz came to my rescue with an extra e-mail address.

So here I am, back to Trebro for the first time in years. I'm mad I lost my
e-mails for the last few weeks, and I am on a Yahoo boycott (thanks again for
moving the list--I'd have hated to lose you guys!), but I have to admit,
getting to be Trebro again feels really, really good.

Trebro is me, and I am him.