I can still remember the combination to the Master Lock I had in high school. I can't recall what I had for lunch yesterday, but I know the three numbers required to open a piece of hardware I no longer own.

Maybe 36-8-24 stuck in my brain before it got cluttered with too many other number combinations, before passwords took over my life.

When calling the doctor's office to make an appointment, I have to think before I talk. What child am I calling for and what is that child's birthday? Having two kids in September and one with the same birth date as my husband doesn't help. And if you've ever told someone the wrong birth date for your child and then had to go back and correct it, there isn't much that's more embarrassing than that mother-of-the-year moment.

We have passwords to get into our computer, our voicemail at home and at work, work-related Web sites that require log-ins, flex-spending and dependent-care accounts, Blogger, YMCA class sign-ups, eBay, bank statements, Amazon.

Sure, online shopping makes buying much easier, but more accounts mean more passwords, and sometimes those passwords have to be complicated. They have to be a complex amalgamation of capital and lowercase letters, numbers and punctuation -- nothing that has any significance to me, and therefore, no easy way to remember it.

After making my way through a pile of bills recently and writing out checks, I was thinking about how I should switch to paying online. I'll need to come up with more passwords, of course.

My days are numbered.