My mom’s death certificate. That’s weird.

How many private keys do you happen to have in .ssh? MaxAuthTries defaults to 6, and keys are always tried before you are prompted for a password. Unless you set PubkeyAuthentication=no, or specify a single key, the ssh client will happily grind through each key until the server cuts you off.

This is the one that crossed my mind. Valve man looking up at you is unsettling.