My husband claims that I hit him in the face three times as I slept last night. (Personally, I only remember one, which woke me up when it happened.) In my condition, most would blame the pregnancy hormones. I blame Citibank.

As I was trying to access my account last night, I was told that I needed to answer some security questions in order to make my online access more secure. I willingly obliged by clicking the button to answer now rather than later. This is what I got.

Note the tips on the left side, then look at the questions. What if my favorite television show is “24″? (I’ve never seen “24″, but this is a “what if” scenario since I don’t really watch TV.) Can’t use that answer. Which country would you like to visit? Since there are 192 countries in the UN and I’ve been to fewer than 15 of them, there are a lot of countries I’d like to visit, not just one.

Of all the questions in the list, the only one for which I have a consistent answer for more than a week is the first one…if only I could remember her name. Oh yes, I remember now. Kenna, or was it Kena? I’ve had over seventy roommates due to living in large houses with lots of people and over 17 years of rotating roommates. I pick one of the spellings and hit submit.

Wait, that red asterisk is REQUIRING me to answer 3 questions. Okay, maybe I’ll have better luck with the second. Good, it’s a different set of questions. Uh-oh. Similar problem. What was your boss’s first name at your first job? How do I know? I can barely remember the name of the company. If you could control your height, what height would you be? Your kidding me, right? What is with the “stroll down memory lane” line? Most of the questions have nothing to do with memory lane. They have to do with fickle favorites and fantasies for which only people without a life would have static answers.

Out of all the choices in the second question set, there is one answerable question…my favorite pet. Third question set, one answerable question–first pet. Easy, same answer as the question from set two.

Done. Submit. Error message: you cannot use the same answer twice.

In a fit of frustration, I write a somewhat unpleasant message to Citibank.

I can’t answer your bad questions 12/13/06 06:16:57 PM

You wrote:

Today when I logged in, I was asked to answer security questions in order to make my account more secure. Normally, I would be happy to do this, but the selection of questions were not questions that I could answer within the restrictions given. Please either expand the choice of questions or allow for a write in question for those of us who went to so many schools that we don’t remember the names of any of them, and had only one pet but can’t use the same answer twice, and have 3-letter nicknames for the people given…etc. Unless this is done, I won’t be able to answer the security questions consistently without writing them down, which defeats the purpose of security questions.

Re: I can’t answer your bad questions 12/13/06 06:36:34 PM

Customer Service Wrote:

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) required that all banks must take additional steps to protect online access. Citicards chose to utilize Challenge/Response or Security Questions. You will only be required to answer these questions when requesting certain functions on our website. In the event that you forget your answer you can make your request over the phone and have your security questions reset by calling 1-800-347-4934.

Thank you for using our website.

So, I can’t remember my phone number from when I was a kid, but I’m supposed to remember the number to call to get my questions reset?

Hmm. Come to think of it, maybe the unconscious punches were a side affect of pregnancy. My frustration was probably more a result of my inability to remember anything at the moment than a result of stupid security questions from Citibank.

Right before the Citibank incident, I was convinced that my husband had first showed me the Original Numa videos on YouTube. After debating it with him and then calling Feech (my teenager I’ve been harassing…I mean mentoring…for the past 4 years), I learned that Feech had shown them to me right before I got pregnant. My husband had never seen them before. (He has now.)

Perhaps pregnancy has robbed me of my memory. But I’m still blaming Citibank.