i do not have that box selected, emulate 3 button mouse has not been enabled
Ok, the mystery deepens. You say you "try to alt click a section of the arm while in wire frame". Do you actually mean wire frame? Or are you referring to Edit Mode? If not then you have to be in edit mode.
A couple other things come to my mind, are you in face select mode? Try being one face select when when edit mode to select the row of faces. Also maybe you mean you're trying to select more than one row, in which case after you select on row with ALT, to dd another you have to press both ALT and SHIFT.
And lastly, maybe the selection is not going in the direction you want and that has to do with the location of your mouse pointer. Depending on which corner of the face you have your mouse on, it will select the row of faces either vertically or horizontally.
Another thing that can be occurring is you have the Overlays turned off. Be sure you have those on: