Steve Braunias forgets his Apple ID and goes deep down into a wormhole

A man and his computer - why we're still screaming down the phone about tech.

Steve Braunias goes down the Apple ID wormhole

There are worse things than forgetting your Apple ID password, such as sudden death. But at least you'd go quick. When you forget your Apple ID password, you go slow, an essential part of yourself withering and rotting on the IT vine. It's so awful. It's so common. It's so much worse when you also forget the answers to your Apple ID security questions.

"Tell me you didn't call the Apple help desk," said the IT guy at my work.

"I called the Apple help desk," I said.

"How long were you on the phone?"

"About an hour."

"How bad was it?"

"Bad," I said. "Very bad. I got angry with her. I just couldn't understand how I got the answers wrong. It didn't make sense."

The call lasted about two hours if you include the hour I was on hold, but I didn't mind the wait. I put the phone on speaker and went about my business. "Finally," I said, when a woman answered. I told her I forgot my Apple ID password. She said everyone forgets their Apple ID password and it was easy to fix. She was right. It hardly took any time for her to reset it and I was like, "Oh great, I'm good to get on with my Apple ID life," but she was like, "Woah pardner, not so fast."

She explained that I had to answer the Apple ID security questions. There were three of them and the first was, "Name the city where your parents met?"

I said, "Mount Maunganui."

She said, "That's not the correct answer."

I figured that Mount Maunganui wasn't correct because it's not a city, that it's really part of Tauranga, which is definitely a city, so I said, "Tauranga."

She said, "That's not the correct answer."

"I don't understand," I said.

"That's okay," she said. "Let's see if you can answer the second question. Who was your best friend when you were a teenager?"

I kept the phone on speaker. My daughter was sitting next to me on the couch, trying to read. "Emily," she said.

"That's so sweet," I said, "but I didn't know your mum when I was a teenager." I kept my voice down. Then I raised it, and said, "Murray."

The help desk woman said, "That's not the correct answer."

"Derek."

My daughter laughed, and said, "Derek! You knew someone called Derek?"

The help desk woman said, "That's not the correct answer."

"Tony."

"That's not the correct answer."

"Simon."

"That's not the correct answer."

I shouted, "This is stupid! I don't know who my best friend was when I was a teenager! It could have been anyone!"

"That's okay," said the help desk woman. "Let's see if you can answer the third question. What's your birthday?"

"June 20, 1960."

"That's not the correct answer."

"What?"

My whole life was falling apart. Nothing was real. I'd got everything wrong. I didn't know where my parents met or who my best friend was as a teenager or even when I was born – my whole life was a lie. Was the beautiful 12-year-old girl sitting next to me on the couch actually my daughter? I was afraid the help desk woman might ask, and then announce, "That's not the correct answer."

The IT guy at work fixed me with a pitying smile while I told him the whole sorry story. I said, "I mean, how can I get my birthday wrong? I've only got one birthday."

He said, "That's because I set the answers to your security questions."

"What?"

He explained that everyone at work forgets the answers to their Apple ID security questions, so he set the same questions as well as the same answers for everyone. Everyone, in his matrix, had the same life. Their parents all met in the same city, they all had the same best friend as teenagers, and they were all born on the same day.

Incredible. But what if something happens to the IT guy? Everyone will lose their identity. No one will know how to answer their Apple ID security questions, ever. We'll all be locked out of Apple, forever. We'll lose the will to live. Death, come quickly.