No More Text Messaging For You!

by Barbara Bissett

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While technology has made our day-to-day lives easier, there's just some folks who haven't adapted quite as quickly as the others, especially when it comes to text messaging. Our good friend, Barbara Bissett, examines some of the more unfortunate text messages she's stumbled across.

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Technology has absolutely affected most aspects of all of our lives by now. It seems so archaic that we used to have to wait until the end of the month to get our bank statements in order to balance our checkbooks, when now we can just pull it up online every day if we feel the urge. There’s no need to dig out one of those thick dirty books where we used to look up phone numbers, ending up with our fingers covered in some kind of yellow pages soot which remains long after you’ve called whatever number it probably took 15 minutes to find.

In some ways, technology has brought us closer together. When I left home for college, it was my first experience with email. It was very exciting to be able to communicate with friends around the country without having to both be free or awake or sober at the same time. Even my grandparents signed on for an aol account. Everyone was suddenly in the loop. My dad recently had a house built 3000 miles away and was able to watch every step of the process through photos the neighbors sent via email. I can even send pictures from my cell phone. This is great for celebrating exciting moments and for catching the occasional fashion disaster to send to your closest friends.

As with anything, there are down sides to all of this. For example, I now feel somehow incomplete if I don’t check my bank accounts at least once a day. Am I concerned that all the money will suddenly disappear, that I will become an overnight victim of some horrible theft? Not really. Yet I keep checking anyway. Do we really need to be able to send photos with our phones? Aren’t they really meant for talking? And does anyone talk in person anymore? I’ve had plenty of conversations on cell phones that ended with someone saying, “Okay. I can see you now. I’m going to hang up.” Should we be talking on the phone when we can literally see each other? I think not.

The worst culprit, however, of blatant technology misuse may be the text message. And I can offer no better example than my dear mother. Not only does she feel that a text message is an appropriate way to convey just about any piece of information, but she sends them incessantly. It is a rare day that I don’t wake up to some message sent at a ridiculous hour of the morning saying “I love you sweetie” or “Raining hard here!” Does this make me feel more connected somehow? I can honestly say, “NO.” There are some things that really require a conversation. For example, the text message apology. I say it doesn’t count. If you have a fight with someone serious enough that they need to say they’re sorry from a remote location, lets at least make a phone call.

Following is a list of my favorite inappropriate text messages. Most, as you may have suspected, were from my dear mother. A few others were too good to overlook as examples of what not to text.

1. We were robbed today!

One can imagine the panic I felt when this was the first thing I saw after waking up in the morning. Upon further inspection, I found that the message had been sent at about 5 am, which seems to be my mother’s favorite text messaging time, if one can have such a thing. I immediately called her, but got her voice mail. When she did manage to call me back a few (long) hours later, I had already created a whole scenario in my head of men in ski masks ransacking her home, tying my grandma to a chair with duct tape and making off with priceless heirlooms. Thankfully the actual “robbery” was not nearly so dramatic. I found out later that this message had been sent to both of my siblings as well. Mom didn’t bother to call back my brother (luckily I filled him in), and my sister just laughed and didn’t give it a second thought (smart girl).

2. Grandmother died noon 2day.

Well, my grandmother died that day – apparently at noon. I was at work when I received this message (which was, by the way, also sent to both of my siblings). So of course I called my mother from work and spent 40 minutes on the phone trying to console her. Not for her loss, of course, but for how this would affect her life. It’s all about her, all the time. Frankly, I felt like a voice mail would have been a little nicer. For one, maybe I wouldn’t have listened to it until I was on my way home from work and that would have made MY day a little easier. Yeah, I get a little of the “me” disease from my mom.

3. We no longer need your services.

Okay, so I’ll admit I don’t know EXACTLY how this one went. Shockingly, it was sent only to my brother. And yes, what you’re thinking is true. My mother fired my brother via a text message. I’ll just let you think about that one for a moment. Just to follow up, she did have to retrieve the company van from him last weekend and she left me a voice mail – I know – afterwards in which she claimed, “I wish he would get his life together. I feel horrible!” I wish they’d all get their lives together because these messages are all costing me a damn fortune!

4. I love you.

This was a great story which also, thankfully, did not involve me directly. Sounds pretty innocent, right? I love you. It’s something that it said quite often, and probably a quick text on your phone so you can send that very message to your loved ones without even typing it in! How convenient. However, in this case, it was sent from a very disturbed young man to the woman of his fancy (my co-worker) who was pretty convinced he was crazy and was CERTAINLY not in love with him. They had not exchanged “I love you”s, nor was she planning to any time ever.

5. Won’t live without you. Goodbye

Well, after my dear co-worker received the above message, she replied with “I think you need to love yourself before you could love me.” Well put. The young man involved felt differently and decided (probably with the help of a bar’s worth of beer) that he couldn’t live without her. Thus began the exchange of multiple text messages between my coworkers and I, trying to determine at what point one should call social services to place an emergency call on behalf of a disturbed young man who may do something… well, how you define that something really depends on whether you feel he was a worthwhile part of society or not. I voted let it go and hope Darwin was right. Long story short, we didn’t call. He didn’t mean it. Oh well. As a side-note, he was later fired (shocking, I know) over the phone. Inappropriate, I agree, but at least not a text message.

6. I’m preggo. Baby may be yours. Maury Povich date to follow.

Let me first admit that as I considered writing this, I thought, “Wow. It would be funny to tell someone you were pregnant via a text message.” Little did I know just how funny that could be. I discovered just today that, not only did a woman I have the dubious honor of knowing let the prospective father-to-be know of her pregnancy via text message, but she did in fact send out multiple text messages. To be fair, I believe she said it was only two. Do I believe her? Well, I chose not to question so as to remove myself from the conversation as quickly as possible. It gets even better. She got a text message back from one that says, “I just got this phone. Think you have the wrong person.” Nice. Imagine getting that message and not even knowing who it was from. I think she takes the cake. Well, at least now my mother has something to aspire to.

So remember folks, text message carefully out there. Before you start typing away like a maniac on your keyboard the size of a credit card, consider the implications of your message. There’s an old rule that says roughly “If it’s information that affects the receiver personally, it should be delivered in person.” Just something to consider... maybe at least a phone call. Or a voice mail. Maybe an email? Just NOT a text message.

And can someone please tell my mom?

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Barbara Bisset is the owner or co-owner of 24 blogs, 20 of which publish Three's Company fan fiction. For some reason, all of Bisset's own entries conclude with that episode's landlord (either Roper or Furley) ejaculating on Larry while screaming, "Come and knock on my door!" She was last heard from way back in Issue Three, with an essay about MySpace love. We recommend checking it out.