“What do you mean you can’t access it? ISN’T THIS YOUR JOB?” is admittedly not the best way to speak to the woman at the Apple help desk. But I was three levels past breaking point trying to access my account.
I had discovered someone I trusted was using my information to spy on me. Thus began my frenetic journey of changing passwords for every account I have ever used.
MushroomsForDinner@5pm!
HA- genius! No one would guess this because I hate mushrooms. (Also, who schedules mushrooms for 5 pm? Sociopaths, that’s who.) All hopped up on adrenaline and fungi, the new passwords came fast and furious:
YummmChickenOfTheWoods!#1Can’tWait
SautéShitakeYaySlayBey
NotAFungiAmongi
No criminal mastermind could crack my codes. Unfortunately, neither can I when I try to cancel an old Apple account. I had neglected to write any of them down during what is now coined: Mushroom Melee 2025.
Hmmm, is it PortobelloForThisFello? No.
EnokiIsNoJoki? Wrong again.
Now I am trapped in a password holding cell: I have to wait 60 more minutes to try again. Then 90. Then a month or some other arbitrary time. This is clearly above my pay grade so I click on the magical panacea - the “forgot password” button.
“You’ve come to the right place to reset a forgotten password,” Apple cheerfully informs me. Unbeknownst to me, I have opened a portal to Dante’s Password Inferno and have begun the Seven Trials of Password Hell.
Step One: Confirm account with phone number
A message with instructions has been sent to all of the Apple devices where you are signed in. Which is a sum total of none because I opened this account when Steve Jobs was a fetus.
Two weeks for Apple to send me a link to reset my password?!? Why can't I just change it now? Is this link buried in a Cupertino warehouse? I guess I can burn the time on Candy Crush while I wait.
Fourteen days come and go, and no link is ever sent. Time to call iPhone HQ. Brad from Apple Support doesn’t believe I am capable of following the aforementioned directions, as if my brain is operating on an AOL dial-up.
You silly, IT impaired ignoramus. You clearly know nothing about clicking a button which is why you had to involve us. Now hit exactly the same buttons as you did before but this time with me condescendingly telling you when to click on them.
They should really change the button’s name to “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Click Here”. Back into Dante’s Password Inferno’s Limbo circle I go, as I wait yet another two weeks for a reset link that never arrives. Meanwhile my credit card bill is still racking up monthly charges for apps my kids haven’t used since the Obama administration.
Next up: Shirley NoAppleSupportForYou is on Team #MushroomHater because she tries to walk me through the exact same steps that Condescending Brad and I had already tried. This is not a user error - but Apple’s issue. She chuckles at the insinuation that Apple be capable of committing a faux pas. I have now leveled up into the Anger circle.
Mandy the Manager is called in and wonders “what seems to be” my problem. SHE too has drunk the Forgot Password button Kool-Aid. “Miss Winslow, we need you to go through the Forgot Password to verify your identity to change the password.”
This is when I’m thrust into Dante’s Password Violence circle.
Blood is likely pouring from her eardrum as my volume increases. “I can give you my email and respond to a link. I can respond to the number attached to the account. I can even tell you the number on my credit card that pays for all of the apps but you can’t help me get into my account?! IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN ACTUALLY DO?”
Garbled, terse noises that sound like a screech owl being strangled are now flying out of my mouth. The dogs are hiding in the corner, refusing to make eye contact with me, in case they did something naughty that they forgot about. Even my WiFi is playing dead at this point.
After what can only be called speaking in tongues, Mandy finally confesses that Apple Support cannot actually get into my account, only IT can. And mere humans have zero access to them. Mandy the Manager’s hands are tied and I have reached a dead end. “Yeah, sometimes this happens. It just goes around and around in a loop. There’s nothing we can do about it. So weird, huh?”
Lady, this is not weird. This is a Greek tragedy in a hoodie, sitting in the corner of Starbucks, sipping a $9 oat milk latte.
Her best offer: “I can *probably* unclick the monthly renewals for you?” She sounds so unconvincing. Welcome to Dante’s Circle of Fraud, Tracy! The place where your money disappears but at least we will send you a polite email about it. Maybe.
At this point, the only level left in Dante’s Password Inferno is Treachery. My hands are tied as Apple is the sole keeper of my photos, apps, and one video of an embarrassing karaoke decision made during a Veuve-infused evening.
So I remain locked out - a wandering soul in Dante’s Password purgatory - where Tim Cook consumes shiitakes at 5pm. At this point I’m convinced my Apple ID ran off with the reset link and started a new life somewhere with better WiFi and zero security questions. “Girls, go play ABCmouse before you do your calculus homework. I just paid another $15 for it.”