Story #6: THE PASSWORD
The Password
A girl just wants to watch her Netflix series in peaceBella was sitting cross-legged on her bed, a tub of ice-cream balanced precariously on her lap and her laptop in front of her. It was an old beast of a thing, on its last legs, but at least she was able to work PowerPoint and Word on it. As a third-year business major, her dinosaur of a laptop didn't need to be some fancy, shiny little MacBook that cost more than her one-bedroom apartment.
It was a quiet Friday night, and while most twenty-somethings had hot dates or a club to get to, she had a whole new season of Planet Amore to get through. The first season had completely blown her mind, ending on a cliffhanger that threatened to destroy her mental health, so when she'd received the notification that Season Two was out, of course she'd had to drop everything she was doing just to watch.
Bella took a deep breath, preparing herself, and then opened the Netflix application and clicking the familiar logo of her favorite show.
Too many people are using your account right now
At first, she didn't understand what was happening, or what the error message could really mean. Too many people? Too many people?
She grabbed her phone and called her little sister, Sandra.
"Hey, B!" Sandra exclaimed, after one ring.
"Are you watching Planet Amore right now?" Bella asked through clenched teeth.
"Duh! What episode are you on right now? Have you seen -"
"No spoilers, you clown!" yelled Bella, knowing that if Sandra were in front of her and not safe at their parents' house across town, she probably would've slapped her. "Well, guess what, Sandy? I can't watch it because apparently, there's a third person watching and, as you know, I paid for two screens! So who the hell did you give my password to?"
"Excuse me... I haven't given your password out! Why would I do that?"
"Oh, maybe because you've done it before! When you gave it to your loser of an ex-boyfriend, Mike!"
"You'll never let me forget that, will you?" Sandra let out a heavy sigh. "Look, you can check who else is watching. Just log into your Netflix account on the website, not the app. You'll be able to see the person's location and IP address, and then you can change the password. Okay?"
Bella was nodding even though her sister couldn't see. "Okay. You're right."
"Don't forget to text me the new password!" Sandra said before her sister hung up.
Bella hunkered down over her laptop, doing exactly as her sister said. Because of this mystery person, she hadn't been able to start the season when she wanted to. Bella had timed it. If each episode was roughly forty minutes long, and there were ten episodes, she could've been done with the season by 3AM, give or take a couple of minutes.
She was sure that Sandra had shared the login details with one of her ditzy little high school friends and forgotten.
But that wasn't what Netflix said.
There was only one person she knew in Poland.
Sandra picked up after several rings.
This time, Bella didn't let her speak first. "Sandra Michelle Anderson," she began in a stern voice, "did you give my Netflix password to your loser of an ex-boyfriend, who miraculously managed to get into the University of Warsaw?"
There was a long silence before Sandra said softly: "He's kind of not my ex anymore. We're doing the long-distance thing."
Bella hung up and promptly changed her password. This was the last time she would ever be nice enough to share her account with someone. As she settled back onto her bed while the opening credits of Planet Amore rolled, she ignored the vibrations of her phone from a no-doubt frustrated Sandra, who had been kicked out of Netflix in the middle of an episode.
END
NEXT WEEK: Short story inspired by the tweet: 'Am I crazy for being really hurt when I invite someone over and their response is always “who is going to be there?” Is this a normal thing? I’m kind of heartbroken when I get this response...'
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