I have a friend who is in Las Vegas for a funeral. This friend has a cell phone but refuses to text so you have to call her on the phone if you want to communicate with her. A phone on which she cannot hear when she is right up next to a slot machine spinning out those cherries and other fruits of the spirit. So, she says she’ll call me back from outside. That doesn’t work either as she is too close to the building and it’s blocking the transmission. The next spot she tries, the women’s room. As in bathroom. As in flushing toilets and whirring hand dryers. I’m sure she got some weird looks from women who were just trying to take care of nature’s call while this lady is trying to take care of a call from California.
I keep saying, “I wish you would just use text. It would be so much easier. All I want to do is give you a phone number.” See, I’ve been sitting here in California, on my computer, checking Facebook, when I see that five of our former students are having a big ol’ reunion in Las Vegas. Although not family of the kind I just wrote about, they consider themselves family because they were in class together, in every class, for three years with the same crazy teachers telling them what to do all three years. The lady in Las Vegas, trying to take a call in the commode? She’s the secretary for the department that managed the program in which these kids took classes. She made lots of calls to these kids’ homes if they didn’t come to class, didn’t do their work, didn’t dress right, didn’t bring their supplies. I’m sure you get the picture. She knows these kids through and through even though they are now adults who have been out of school for fifteen years and I know she would love to see them so I am trying to connect this nontexting, slot-playing elderly woman with a group of technologically advanced young people who are posting photos to Facebook as fast as I am typing this. It’s not working.
She doesn’t have a pen on her to take down the phone number of the former student whom I’ve been texting back and forth. A pen. Who doesn’t have a pen in her purse? Someone ought to call her mother. Oh wait. Her mother is dead. Like those people in my reunion story. She says it’s okay to give her number to the former student and hopefully they can connect. She would like to see them. But, remember, she is there for a funeral. Yeah, and some slots.
The funeral is tomorrow at a place called, now you better sit down for this one, Living Well Baptist Church. I don’t think so.
I never used to text before, but now that I’ve started, I’m hooked. It’s a wonderful tool.
Texting is just so much easier than phone calls. I hate to make phone calls any more just because of incidents like this one.
I text my husband and kids a lot, quick and easy.
Another benefit is that you have evidence of the message whereas a phone call can go in one ear and out the other.
I don’t text either, but I DO carry a pen! And an iPad. That’s a strange place for a funeral, with a name like that. Glad I was sitting down!
See, I could have emailed you on the iPad. It’s just easier than calling.
too funny, I don’t text either but it’s because I don’t have it on my cell phone-it cost extra. Thanks for your comments on my blog. Interesting that we have been blogging both for about 5 years. It’s like journaling for me too. Lin in Utah
Sometimes I over-text and get charged more. I have a basic amount of text and it’s usually enough, but in June, I got carried away and was charged an extra $9. I tweet a lot so that’s what adds up because each reply to one of my tweets is an incoming text.