"I AM using the right password!" Carrie screamed at her computer. "It's the..."

...cat again. George, will you please get this damned cat out of here," I screamed at my husband. "A few minutes ago he deleted the manuscript I spent all morning on and hadn't saved to the hard drive, and now he just walked over the keyboard and erased my password."

George, my soul mate of 6 months, the man I thought would be my husband forever looked at me with eyes that could kill and replied with measured venomous words, "Well my cat is still less trouble than the slobbering Great Dane of yours. Remember last week when he drooled over my computer. I can't take that mutt anymore."

"Sandy is still better company than you or your Siamese cat."

"If you don t like me or my cat why not just leave?"

"If that's the way you want it goodbye and good riddance."

by Donald Macnow, Glen Cove, NY

...same password I've been using for the past eight months!"

"Computer issues again, Carrie?" Bob could not help but throw gasoline on the open flame of Carrie's problems with the computer.

Carrie glowered at Bob, knowing that he was thoroughly enjoying her problem, and practically hissed her response to him, "Yes Bob, I'm having issues with the system again."

Smiling broadly, Bob figured he could not incur any worse wrath from Carrie at this point, so he decided to poke the bear with a stick one more time. "Did you hit the numbers lock key like you're supposed to?"

Carrie, now staring silently at Bob, slowly and with great deliberation, pushed the numbers lock key on the keyboard. She knew her torture was going to continue when she saw the faint yellow glow indicating that the computer would now recognize the numeric entry she had to include in her password.

by Steward Lindsay, Buffalo, NY

...darn mouse! Someone's been playing around with it. Every time I push the ENTER button the mouse turns over and starts to hum to the tune, Pop goes the Weasel. And then when I depress EXIT, the darn thing goes Up, Up, Up, and Away.

"I'll bet it's that darn sister of mine!" Carrie said.

"Could be," I said. "You remember last week when you put that For Sale sign on her car!"

"Yeah, I remember," Carrie said, "but that was last week and she should have gotten over that by now."

"I don t think so," I responded, "she really was upset after getting over seventy telephone calls from people who wanted to buy her brand new Dodge Ram for only one thousand dollars!"

by Joseph L. Rose, Fairfield, CA

...automatic password change that keeps messing me up," she said with a sigh.

The rules and regulations of the Internet had changed over the past year due to "Online terrorism" as the White House press secretary put it. To keep bank funds in the correct accounts across the globe, the American government decided to pass a law which instituted a change in any and all online passwords every six hours. Carrie lived in Holland and didn't understand why the new law was affecting her.

"They try and govern the entire world," she said as she powered down her computer for the last and final time.

by Donald Stidham, Longview, TX