You know what really frosts my flakes?
Those ridiculous CAPTCHA tests that some websites insist on making us solve before we can log in.
This has to rank among the dumbest inventions on the internet.
First, the website already asks for your username and password. Then, it decides that’s not enough. Now I have to prove I’m human by playing a game of “Where’s the Bicycle?”
Click every square with a bicycle. Done. Wrong!
Apparently, the microscopic sliver of a tire sticking into the corner of another box also counts.
Fine. Now click every crosswalk. Wrong again.
You missed the one that’s half a mile away in the background just behind three parked cars and a shrub.
Then comes my favorite. Select all images with stairs. So, I do. Nope.
Because, according to the computer, that blurry gray line in the upper-right corner is technically the last step of a staircase.
Who designs these things?
I’m convinced the only creatures capable of passing these tests are the robots they’re supposedly trying to keep out.
Meanwhile, actual humans are sitting there squinting at grainy photos wondering whether that’s a motorcycle, a mailbox or a confused giraffe.
Then, after you finally get one test right, congratulations, here’s another one. Then another. And yet another.
By the time you’re allowed into your account, you’ve practically earned a degree in engineering.
There has to be a better way.
Send me a text. Use an authentication app. Email me a code. Ask me my favorite flavor of ice cream. Almost anything would be less aggravating than hunting for tiny pieces of bicycles hidden in blurry photographs.
I’m Grandpa Grumpy, and if your website makes me identify crosswalks before I can pay my bill, maybe I don’t need to do business with your company after all.