I wonder how many of you have ever been hung up by a technology problem that simply could not be resolved? I’m betting a lot of you have. By technology problem, I mean something along the lines of being frozen out of your online identity or suffering an untraceable glitch in the electronic brainwaves that attach each of us to the web-based universe of Everything.

Of course, computers and the internet speed things up and add to human productivity on a scale unimaginable to the common man just a few years ago, say before the year 1999, the year of the Y2K problem. Who remembers that? But there’s a flip side to that hyper productivity coin the Year 2000 Bug may have hinted at.

Just so readers in the future know what I am talking about, presently we humans use e-mail for a great many communication shortcuts: doctor appointment confirmations, reminders of upcoming events, direct personal communication with friends, and among these uses is the announcement by organizers of sign-up periods for events, like garlic festivals.

About a year and a half ago, I was locked out of my e-mail account. Originally, my e-mail was provided by Frontier Communications, my sole source for connecting to the Web. It was the tortuously slow bing-bing-ding dial-tone dial-up service (if you can call it a service) of the local phone company. Soon, Frontier’s e-mail was partnered with Yahoo’s e-mail. Yahoo was purchased by Verizon in 2017. Yahoo began to manage e-mail for Frontier. Eventually, Frontier had nothing to do with its own product. And Yahoo got purchased by the Apollo Global Management Group. Then, Frontier was purchased by Verizon. Makes your head spin. Bottom line: I was locked out of my Frontier e-mail, and they said they were no longer responsible. I called Yahoo. I could get more info out of talking to a remote wildlife camera screwed to a fencepost complete with a two-way walky-talky answered by an off-planet alien.

The alien said someone tried to steal my identity. Oh yeah, I forgot; somehow Facebook was also looped into this e-mail service. Ever try calling Facebook? Better luck reaching the dead through a séance. “Forgot Password?” Well, hell yeah! Which password? Frontier’s, Yahoo’s, Facebook’s? “Sorry, your account has been frozen. We need proof of who you are. Hold your driver’s license next to your head and take picture of your face.”

So now the Apollo Global Management Group has just about everything on me. “Sorry, it looks like you are not who you say you are; therefore, you are locked out, permanently!”

No e-mail, no more contact list. Yes, I did create a new e-mail, this time with Google, but “my contacts” were locked away from me, you know, in my own interest, since I am not who I say I am nor who I ever was.

People and organizations attempting to reach me were given a message of “This e-mail address is no longer in service,” or, no message at all. For some organizations I was able to relocate e-mails though websites. But not for the Bennington Vermont Garlic Festival. A farmer must sign up for these events and send in payment and certificates of insurance and other identifying information, and so time is a factor, and when I didn’t hear from Bennington, I got worried. By the time I figured it out, they were fully booked. A waiting list. I signed up for the waiting list. No way to contact them directly. Only one e-mail is allowed for the waiting list, no repeats.

I figured I was hopelessly out. Then I saw an ad for the festival, and it had a hot link to a contact. “Hey how come you never contacted me? No e-mail, Nothing. I want in.” A call came. We have a cancellation; you can take the spot of the Elks; they’re not coming.” “Ok, fine. Make sure you have my correct e-mail address.”

I got up at 4:47 in the morning. The truck I’d loaded the previous evening. I just had to turn on the headlights. And the headlights, another thing, who invented this automatic high beamer switcher than dims your high beams every time you get to direct a feedback of light from a road crossing sign, or an orange caution sign for a curve in the road?

The festival was good. The road home was quiet. I contacted my old buddy Garcia, now of Mechanicville, and we met at the Man of Kent Tavern. All’s kinda all right with the world if you can still manage the simple pleasures in life, crushing tech notwithstanding.