Doorknob

We just replaced all the worn and pitted round brass doorknobs in the house with bronzed lever handles. What a major improvement can be achieved with such a minor change! 

Pitted on top but shiny enough
to reflect the photographer

No one is going to notice the handles, but the whole house just looks nicer. Especially in the hallway where multiple bedroom and closet doors had presented a tunnel of winking shiny brass.

The new handles are much nicer, easier
to use, and class up the place 

Many years ago in the wayback times, we also replaced all the doorknobs in our house at that time. We were painting the hallway and one thing led to another and we needed new knobs throughout the whole house.

It was 1998 I think, and internet shopping was a new thing. I fired up my brand new iMac G3 desktop machine and ordered a bunch of doorknobs from a specialty hardware site I found. This was a time before Amazon sold anything but books and CDs.

Remember this?

I was nervous about this newfangled ordering and appalled about putting in my credit card. I had to create an account with the hardware store and a password, and the interface was awkward. But I tried it.

And then I needed to check the order. But I forgot the password I had created. In those days there was no simple way to request a forgotten password, online shopping was still so new and poorly designed.

I tried everything I could think of, but didn't want to use up my 10 guesses and get locked out. Frustration and confusion mounted. I was sure this internet shopping would be the death of us all and would never become a standard for any kind of retail ever.

I finally was able to contact the hardware vendor and get my password and it was . . .

   . . . .  doorknob.

For years after that revelation, doorknob was my go-to password for any kind of shopping until they made us start using symbols and numbers and I changed all my passwords. I still think "doorknob" any time I log in to a site. It's very meta.

You can put doorknob on my gravestone. I think it may be my password to the afterlife.