Take my hand. Join me in the 1980s. For I am trapped there, and though the end is in sight, it is but a glimmer in the distance.

There are so many good ways to be trapped in the 1980s. Stranger Things, for example. Or Sunday morning, when I found Can’t Buy Me Love playing on TV.

Or my horror-loving teen, who has a T-shirt from Camp Crystal Lake. Who can’t believe I wore lace fingerless gloves. Who heard Metallica and asked if they were My Chemical Romance before there ever was a My Chemical Romance.

But the 1980s had its share of bad times too. Like when I wasn’t allowed to see Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. Or the fourth grade, when I found out my vote for Walter Mondale didn’t count.

It is this part of the 1980s where I have set up camp.

It all started with my mom, Willie.

I’m here to tell you when your mom starts having memory problems the last thing you also need her to have is internet access.

It’s a portal for criminals. They crawl through the computer all nasty and terrifying like the kid from The Ring. One conversation with Willie and they’re off to the races.

And – hey. If you’re a scammer reading this, don’t go target Willie. Finish reading so you can see I have enough problems without your grubby hands in Willie’s internet.

I was loath to cut off Willie’s internet access after she was scammed.

And scammed again.

And scammed again.

So Willie and I came to an agreement. I would monitor her internet activity and, like Sam Beckett on Quantum Leap, put right what once went wrong.

I mean, I already oversee two teens’ internet use. Why not add a third?

When I type that, I hear it as a frustrated shout in my head. Like, I’m all for Jazzercise and aspirin and Mediterranean diets. But sometimes enough is enough. We don’t need to live forever. That’s why I’m taking up cigarettes and donuts for dinner when I’m seventy.

Or, you know, tomorrow.

Because when surveilling Willie’s internet use became a regular part of my life, I discovered all kinds of things I didn’t want to know.

Like when Willie’s favorite politician sent a blast email asking for donations.

Willie responded.

Effusively.

Like the email was personally from that candidate to Willie.

The email assuring Willie that the sender was a physical specimen with adroit sexual abilities they were eager to perform on Willie? That went to spam.

Which is a little disappointing. I kind of want to see that response.

I explained to Willie that this candidate was not personally sending emails. That it was a blast email, like junk snail mail. That the email account likely didn’t even accept responses.

“That’s offensive,” Willie said.

I wasn’t sure if she meant the blast email or my explanation. Probably the latter.

Willie’s internet incursions came so fast and furious they may as well have been Vin Diesel. But seriously less hot.

What do you do when your parent is more of a problem online than your teenagers? Or at least not as good at hiding it?

A confab with my siblings yielded a thought. We could give Willie a new email address.

A new email would clean the slate of thousands of unread emails and deluge of spam. It was like declaring email Chapter 11.

My sister set up the new email. I volunteered to update Willie’s online accounts – her supermarket and pharmacy, her bank and credit card – from the old email to the new one.

That’s when I went to the 1980s. And I didn’t even get to do it in a DeLorean.

See, Willie keeps her passwords in a handheld electronic device with all the dexterity of a Speak & Spell.

Over one hundred accounts are logged on this device. Accessing a given account requires toggling a keyboard arrow across a screen with dot matrix graphics.

So if I want to change, say, Willie’s Boscov’s account password, I first turn on the device. Then I use the keyboard to type in Willie’s password for the device.

I know. Password upon password.

Next, I use the arrow key to click over to “Edit.” Then I use that same key to click “Search.” Then I type in “b.”

Then I say, in the words of A Christmas Story, f dash dash dash because Boscov’s is under capital “B” (not lowercase “b”), and Willie’s password protector doesn’t recognize the two as the same f dash dash dash letter.

And the best part – the BEST part – is each tap of the keyboard is heralded by a tiny beep. So the scenario above yields thirteen beeps.

And one f dash dash dash.

Four hours got me through ninety of Willie’s passwords, forty-two cigarette and donut fantasies, and one imagined conversation with Vin Diesel. My adolescents, who quite literally cut their teeth on my early-aughts flip phone – begged me to stop.

“Can’t you connect it to your AirPods?” they pleaded, reasoning Airpods would jangle the beeps through my ears alone.

Ha.

People who know My Chemical Romance but don’t know Metallica aren’t aware of electronics lacking Bluetooth capabilities.

And also have terrible parents. Who doesn’t play Metallica for their kids?

Last night, while the kids were off at work, I hunkered down with the password protector. I beep beep beeped my way through 10 more of Willie’s accounts.

“Are you playing Space Invaders?” my husband cracked.

I gasped, giddy that he finds Willie’s password protector as retro as I do. He was, at that moment, so much my Patrick Dempsey he may as well have paid me to go out with him for a month. You know. To make him popular.

So maybe I’m not in the worst part of the 1980s after all.