My E Death

For reasons too absurd to get into, my longtime email account was canceled yesterday.  No -- actually not just canceled -- it was "terminated" by AOL.com.  Hours of phone conversations with pleasant denizens of the Sub Continent all seem to indicate that dsa61 is now a screen name lost forever.  And it has affected me much more seriously than I thought it would.

DSA61 is the only email address I ever had -- I adopted it back in, I think, 1993 when we first got AOL accounts.  It was short, and unfailingly easy to remember for me, as long as I didn't forget my initials and year of birth.

Of course, over the years having an AOL address marks you as, well, old.  As my friend Jeff noted -- "Who even has AOL anymore?  You must submit to the gods of Google..."  But I have kept on -- something works for me, I stick with it.

All kidding aside, losing the account has serious repercussions. I keep as "new" messages of great importance -- client matters, insurance and financial information, Florida Bar information.  Recently, D1 and Joey have been sending me correspondence about their new house.  That's lost now -- thankfully I can get, I hope, copies from them.

In my "favorite places" section I have all my user names and password hints from Social Security, car leases, the Ds' financial accounts, and my many financial accounts.  That's all lost now, too.

Just the other day, I needed info from my Hurricane Club account.  I retrieved it easily.  No more.

I know that young people switch email addresses all the time.  But somehow I feel my alter ego is now killed off.

When I book a hotel, or speak to a vendor, they're ALL, these days, younger than I am.  I enjoy giving my email address by the disclaimer "OK -- get ready to laugh to yourself, I have AOL..." and they do.  The nice, typically Midwestern folks say "Oh -- it's ok, my parents (or grandparents) have AOL, too."  This was just a ritual I enjoyed.

Well, I'm keeping it.  I already signed up for a new user name with AOL, and paid a new monthly fee for it.  The new name is unwieldy.  I sounds like a gmail name.  I already dislike it, and it has so many letters I know giving it to non native English speakers is going to be a chore.

I had to use it last night to keep my IPhone working.  Even that new-ish technology was linked to DSA61.  No more.

I'm pretty OCD --  much more than most people realize.  I'd like to at least get started on repairing this electronic murder, to the extent I can, but of course the cyber crime happened two days before Christmas.  The helpful but limited tech woman from Bangalore told me "Call on Monday."  I asked whether they weren't closed for Christmas. "Praise Vishnu --you're correct!"  She didn't actually say that, but I could tell the bubble above her headset said precisely that.

Some people are naturally angry.  I'm not.  I'm not comfortable being an angry guy -- and yet this has made me so livid I barely slept last night.  I can't recall the last time anger has robbed me of sleep -- typically it's worry of some sort.

Oh well -- as Tony S said, what are ya gonna do? His fellow Jersey man said that everything dies -- that's a fact; but maybe everything that dies someday comes back.

I fear that will NOT be the case for DSA61.  He seems terminated, along with all his user names, old emails from dear friends, and password reminders.  I guess the positive thing is that he died as a 56 year old man, and will be spared the indignity of further aging and decay.

I'll miss him.  He was so much a part of my identity for the past quarter of a century.  But now he's gone -- dead -- in the virtual ether.

So long, electronic me.