Yesss i textedmyfirstmessage

That thunder you thought you heard last Saturday night was actually the resounding thud of me patting myself on the back. You see, I sent my very first text message last Saturday night! My family was at a mall in Gainesville last Saturday night and much to my shock and amazement my daughter and wife were interested in spending more time at the mall than I was. So I assumed the worn down husband/father mall position and slumped on a bench out front.

My daughter’s swim coach had texted us. He then called me to see if we had gotten the message. When I discovered it on my wife’s phone I could not understand it because it had some of those funky cool abbreviations so he then basically read it to me.

Needless to say this inspired me to new heights because I had just demoted myself from “Yeah I’m Hip Looking at Aeropostale and Hollister Man” to “Middle Aged Waiting on a Mall Bench Man.” I had to do something to resuscitate my image so I decided to text my totally hip wife.
After three tries I successfully sent her a text that read, and I quote, “Heybaby:^)” OK so obviously I couldn’t find the space key and it was only by the grace of God that I stumbled on the smiley face symbol. The other thing I could not find was the delete key so my first attempt read, “Hhhhhh.” My second attempt was a much improved, “Heybbbbbb.” I had a grandiose scheme of sending her a hot steamy message that would make her want to rush out of the mall and into my arms but once I realized I couldn’t space the letters and I couldn’t correct my mistakes I felt “Heybaby:^)” was in incredibly passionate sonnet.

To understand how I got so incredibly technologically savvy you have to understand how I’m wired. You see, after a long career as THE computer troubleshooter in the house of Quicken in Palo Alto, California my brother turned his hobby of building robots into his career. So, he obviously got the science, technology, focus, driven parts of the brain genes. That left me with the football, basketball, Frisbee, chocolate, ADHD and procrastination genes for my brain. Now this has not done too much for the economic development of my part of the tribe but for me it has made for one heckuvaride! (Note to self, use “Heckuvaride” in a text message.)

Now I also have a problem using technology that is supposed to make you look hipper, sleeker and cooler because when I use such technology I tend to look the opposite of hipper, sleeker, and cooler. For instance, I was not allowed to run wearing my ipod in daylight for a period time. Now that period of time is over and I am not allowed to run with my ipod before 11pm. The problem? It seems you are somehow not supposed to sing and dance loudly while you run while wearing your ipod. I don’t know which is the greater transgression but I sing both loud and badly while I dance even more loudly while running. I don’t see the problem with the singing and dancing thing, it makes the time go way faster and it burns more calories. My family might let me wear my ipod if I ran in a fake beard or a Richard Nixon mask but then again everyone would probably recognize my super silky smooth dance moves as I ran.

If the point of all this hip, slick techno gadgetry is to make you look hip and slick then I don’t think I should make texting a part of my ultra chic makeover. What I envision would be that to concentrate on being really fast I would have to poke my tongue out just a little on the side, much like a kindergartner trying to color in the lines. Then my head would emphatically and repeatedly bob each time I punched a letter. So I would basically look like a balding middle age chicken with his tongue hanging out walking through the mall. How slick is that?

Besides, it seems to me that we’ve already tried this texting thing one time before because I remember in episodes of Gunsmoke when people used to telegraph important messages in Morse code. Doc would decipher things like, “Marshall Dillon, there’s a real hottie on the next stage coach. She’s really 2 cute!” I guess I could learn something from history though, as far as my texting skills I am definitely dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot.