“Five Minutes”

In about two weeks, Monday, December 7th — “a date that will live in infamy” — Yrs Trly will enter Thompson Hospital in nearby Canandaigua to have his left knee replaced.
It’s finally going to happen, it seems, although I predict a possible postponement.
I been tryin’ to do this over a year, although there were a multitude of hoops to negotiate.
One was removing my prostate.
I’m bone-on-bone, and hobbling. Often I can hear it grinding as I walk.
Hospitalization may be three or four days, then I have a long bit of rehab, maybe a month.
This is not at home, since I’d be returning to an empty house.
Rehab will be at a facility away from my house; perhaps the hospital. That hospital has on-site rehab for knee replacements.
In preparation for being away from home so long, I thought I’d do something about the mail.
At first I was gonna “stop mail,” and hold for pickup by my friend that daycares my dog.
But he suggested forwarding to his grooming-shop.
Good idea. I’ll do it. Just go to USPS.com and set up a forward. “Done in five minutes.”
I began this process yesterday at 11:45; 11:50 is five minutes.
Finally at 1:15 I felt satisfied I had set up my “forward.”
That’s one and one-half hours. Whither five minutes?
In my humble experience, things always take way longer than predicted.
First was trying to type “USPS.com” into my browser-bar.
As a stroke-survivor my typing is erratic.
I set up bookmarks, or copy/paste the web-address.
I took at least three tries, about 10 minutes, before I got in.
Then it was make sense of USPS.com, and nowhere did they have “forward.”
After a half-hour I gave up, and cranked “Post Office Forward” into my Google search-bar.
AHA! A valid link.
Thank goodness for Google, although I’m mad at them for trying to take over the universe.
I clicked the link, and began my stroke-addled typing again.
First it wanted me to “log in.”
FER WHAT!? So the Postal-Service can sell my info to Amazon, Facebook, etc, or shower me with useless drivel?
But I couldn’t set up a “forward” without “logging in;” which seems funny because I don’t need to “log in” to “stop mail.”
It took at least a half-hour to “set up an account,” at least three tries. E-mail addresses that aren’t valid, unmatching passwords, the old post-stroke typing waazoo.
When I finally got around to setting up my forward, my forwarding-address wasn’t valid — they wanted a house-number.
I had to call my doggy-daycare friend to get a house-number they never use, so it’s not on their business-card.
Later that afternoon I decided to sign up for LikeLock®, which I’ve wanted to do for years, but haven’t because it’s an online process.
“Easy as pie,” they claimed. “Only five minutes.”
I decided I’d try their free 30-day trial: “Please enter promo-code.”
Again the post-stroke mistyping.
All-of-a-sudden a chat-window appeared: “Any problems?”
“Not yet,” I answered.
“Thank you for choosing LifeLock®. Have a nice day!”
The chat-window disappeared.
LikeLock® is justifiably hyper. They wanted to verify my e-mail address.
“Send e-mail,” I commanded.
Nothing.
I clicked again.
Again, nothing.
Any way I could bring back that chat-lady.
Not that I could see.
I called their 800-number. “You’re talking to a stroke-survivor,” I said. I have to say that to explain my stony silences, stuttering, and asking them to repeat.
I hate making phonecalls, but had no alternative.
“I can’t verify my e-mail,” I said.
“Look in your spam-folder,” she said.
“Not there,” although I should explain my Internet and e-mail delivery were bog-slow because the gamers were on up-the-street.
We spazzed around, but I fired up my junk-folder again, and there was LifeLock®.
“You have to add LifeLock® to your safe-contacts list,” she said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said; “since to me my ‘contact-list’ is contacts I e-mail.
But apparently “unjunking” LikeLock® was the equivalent of “adding to my safe contact-list.”
Why is it things need translation or redefinition to make sense?
“Thank you for being tolerant of a 71-year-old stroke-survivor with bog-slow Internet.”
Starting up LifeLock® took at least an hour, and I was afraid I’d hafta spill because it was getting too dark to walk my dog out back.
So how does one set up a Post-Office “Forward,” or LifeLock®, in only five minutes for each?
I think if you designed the website you could do either in five minutes.

• December 7th, 1941, “a date that will live in infamy,” according to President Franklin D. Roosevelt before Congress, is the day Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech (difficulty finding and putting words together), and left me with sloppy fingers. I pretty much recovered — I can pass for never having had a stroke.