Texting: A love/hate relationship

I’m 33-years-old.

I remember when our family got our first microwave.

My first telephone in my room was a rotary dial.

I saw my first CD disk at a dance in the 9th grade. The student body officers were up on the stage and someone held up a disk. The light hit it and created a crazy amount of refracted light rainbows. I had no idea what it was, but I did have a bit of a Pollyanna moment thinking how cool it would be to string a line of them up on the stage. I wouldn’t own my own CD player until after I graduated from high school in 1992. (I skipped a grade, in case you math heads are going, “Something doesn’t add up here.)

I remember playing Centipede on our Atari and I remember when we bought our first computer. My brother and I had a huge book of computer codes and we would enter lines of code for HOURS on our Commodore 64. At the end of the program we would look at each other anxiously before hitting the “Return” key and pray that we had done all of our coding correctly. If we did, we would be rewarded with some pretty little “Laser show” or spinning object that flashed on the screen for about 15 seconds. If we made even one typing mistake we would have a big, flashing “Error” screen pop up and I would have this overwhelming desire to throw my computer monitor out the window. (Some things have not changed.)

I remember watching the movie, Jumping Jack Flash with Whoopie Goldberg where she saves a stranded British spy trapped in East Germany by “Chatting” with him on her computer at the bank she worked at. I thought the fact that she could type to someone across the world on her computer was AMAZING. I wished so much that it was something I could do.

I didn’t really use a computer for much in school except to use Word Perfect to type and print out papers. Papers that I used books and encyclopedias to research. Because there was no internet when I was in high school. At least not one that was easily accessed by the average Joe.

My freshman year of college, I dated a guy who was a bit of a computer geek (again, some things have not changed) and he introduced me to things like “Telephone” where I could talk to people at other universities and then he showed me the best thing of ALL TIME! “The Internet”.

Until then I had only had the frustration of DOS (Dude. I HATE DOS. I used to get so frustrated in my basics of computers class that I would type “Tree” just because I knew it would make SOMETHING happen!), I dabbled a bit in MUDDS and I perused the “Newsgroups” like, alt.i.hate.barney.die.die.die.

With the internet, I could do ANYTHING and I was hooked. Hooked and I’ve never looked back. I’ve been fond of all the technology advances I’ve seen in my life and despite my definite streak of “TechnoDORK” I think I have adapted rather well. (Except when I try to tinker with my blog template. When I do that I end up shutting down the power grid of the state of Utah and make Dick Cheney’s toilet start flushing randomly. I am super awesome.)

EXCEPT IN ONE AREA.

TEXTING.

I cannot text. I SUCK at it. SUCK! I tell you.

It seems like all my friends and relations take to it with a speediness that confounds me. It seems like I only get a few words henpecked out before another text is on top of me waiting to be opened.

LAZER-FAST TEXTING FRIEND: hey chicka! how r u doing?

ME: Hello! Nice to hear from you. I am fi…

LAZER-FAST TEXTING FRIEND:so do you want to go check out a movie tonight?

ME: Sure, that would be really n-

LAZER-FAST TEXTING FRIEND:we could go catch the new film at the art cinema or hit that chick flick we’ve been wanting to see.

ME: Either of those choices would b-

LAZER-FAST TEXTING FRIEND:art cinema, maybe? yup, i was totally thinking the same thing.

ME: Well, I-

LAZER-FAST TEXTING FRIEND:do you think that the 7 or the 9 would work better for you? i think that the 9 would be best for me because i have a ton of errands to run and then i have dinner to make and the house to clean and a million things to get ready for tomorrow and then of course there is the preparation i have for my work week and oh man am i tired, so i’ll meet you there at 8:45, ok? see you later, toots!

ME: Um…?

And if you think that my lazer-fast texting friends are fast, well you have never seen TEENAGERS. My hell. It’s almost like their thumbs are on fire. I swear that in a few years time we are going to see the equivalent of tennis elbow cropping up amongst the youth of today. I can just see the medical journals: “Texting Thumb”: An epidemic?

Besides the speediness they exhibit, it also takes me a couple of online thesaraus’s and a few hours to decipher just what the HELL their texts SAY.

Example:

OMG i went2 d mal n saw lk a ton of orsum fings 2 buy bt thN i saw my pal jenny or shd i sA my ex pal jenny W my oder bfz guy matt n dey wr lk 100% HH n stuf @ d mal n so thN i wznt sure w@ 2 do so i jst ran N2 d baskin robins n ordrD a 3x <<{:}} cone so dat dey wudnt C me n now i feel lk a big f@ moo 3:-o. tlk2U l8r! BI!

Uh….?

I am just slow as cold tar when it comes to texting, but with my phone anxiety it is also a LIFE SAVER. Texting means you don’t have to stammer out a conversation on the phone and talk over people or laugh too loudly and hysterically out of anxiety. It’s something you can do in loud places that you could never have a conversation or under the dinner table in the middle of a blind date that is sucking the lifeblood out of your soul to the point that you MUST broadcast it to your BFF.

So? In the end I suppose that my texting life will keep going on because dude, it totally is necessary with my phone issues, but I will never be quick or awesome at it. Nope, not at all.

&? im 100% ok W dat. tlk2U l8r!