You did everything right. You remembered your password, which is already a minor miracle, and you typed it in correctly on the first try. Then the website, not satisfied, demanded proof that you are really you: a six-digit code, sent to your phone, expiring approximately four seconds after it arrives.
So the race begins. You grab your phone. It is face-down. It needs your face. Your face, apparently, is not your face until you lift the phone higher and take your glasses off. By the time it unlocks, the text has arrived, but it is hiding behind three other notifications about packages, sales, and a group chat you muted in 2022.
You find the code. 4-8-3, and then your brain, which five seconds ago knew the rest, decides to take a short vacation. You look back. 4-8-3-9-1-7. You switch apps, and the login page refreshes itself out of pure spite. Now the boxes are empty again, and so is your patience.
You type fast this time, like a bomb is about to go off, which emotionally it is. You hit the last digit, press Verify, and get the message everyone dreads: this code has expired. Expired. It was born less than a minute ago. Milk lasts longer. Fruit flies live longer. That code had the lifespan of a mayfly with a busy schedule.
Fine. Resend code. Except now two codes arrive at once, because the first resend and the second resend decided to carpool. Which one is current? Nobody knows. The website will not say. You pick one, and you have a perfect 50 percent chance of being told you are a fraud trying to break into your own bank account to pay your own electric bill.
Get it wrong enough times and the system protects you right out of your life. Too many attempts. Try again later. Later when? Later is not a time. Later is a shrug wearing a calendar costume. You are not a hacker. You are a tired person in sweatpants trying to check a balance before coffee.
The worst part is the lecture that follows. For your security, we have locked your account. For my security, I would like to get into my account. Somewhere in the middle, actual criminals are presumably doing jumping jacks while the rest of us fail a typing test against a countdown clock.
And when you finally get in, sweaty, victorious, slightly feral, the site smiles and asks the question that ends friendships: would you like us to remember this device? Yes. Remember it forever. Tattoo it. Carve it into stone. Because tomorrow, on a different browser, in a different mood, that same website will look at the same laptop on the same couch and say, sorry, never seen you before in my life. Code incoming.