Text Speak. OMW (Oh, My Word!)

Sit down, world, we have texting.

To all those people that I made fun of for texting in-house, from opposite ends of the couch, from upstairs to downstairs, from the bathroom - I'm sorry. I am now one of you, and I see the benefits. I had strong suspicions that if I ever became part of the texting world that I would never go back, and those were certainly well founded suspicions.

I now text my daughter, who is upstairs, to tell her that dinner is ready. She texts from the back seat of the van to ask if we're there yet. (I was the passenger. I don't text while driving.) Sam and I text things back and forth all day that we don't really need to call about but we don't want to forget to tell each other. (Micah pooped in your closet, dear.) (Okay, I've not texted that specifically, but it's happened. Several times.)

On my very first day of texting I realized that I should probably carry the phone around with me so that I'd know if I was important or not. When I needed to make a phone call, I used my cell since it was handily right there. I made the grave mistake of dialing the area code of the phone number, and then jumped down a line and dialed the seven digits of the fax number. (Old eyes, n'at. They sometimes play tricks on me.)

Huge mistake. HUGE.

Mixing things up like that resulted in reaching an x-rated teleslut. I couldn't hang up fast enough. And WHEW, that was overwith. Except it wasn't. Not even five minutes later I got a text message from them. The words used in that text were enough to make my Baptist eyes bleed. It said to hit END if you don't want to receive any more (Hello!) so I did. But there was a little thing in parenthesis that mentioned $18. Would I be charged $18 to get rid of these people? GAH!

They texted again a few days later. So much for that END and $18 charge. Unless they wanted $36 out of me, which at this point was looking like it was going to happen. I needed to call my cell phone company and explain what was going on and ask if they could help me get those charges removed, because DOUBLE GAH! Except I kept forgetting to do that.

I was texted again today by those horridly unwanted people, and just realized that to end the insanity I needed to REPLY END. I missed that reply bit before, which makes perfect sense. (Hey, I'm a new texter. Give me some room for error.) So I wasn't being charged at least, although I was still on their She Wants A Slut list. (Oh, the horrors of embarrassment.) I am afeared of that $18 charge, and desperately need to figure out how to block that number from texting again.

There are days that I wish I was more technologically inclined. Good heavens. I'm beginning to think that texting is of the devil himself.

And hello, Blogger? Texting is too a word. And I thought I was behind the times. (Insert eyeroll emoticon here.)

8 comments:

Chicory Blue said...

That exact thing happened to me...and no, I didn't get charged-but I saved those texts (including the confirmation that it was ended) for 3 months to make sure!
btw-it took more than one END to get them to stop texting me!

Karen said...

So I won't be charged if I end it then?

And that save thing - I've saved one as well to have record of whom to block. It makes me feel all dirty having it on my phone. Why, WHY, do they pick on us innocent people?

Trisha said...

Thank you for letting me into the world of texting vicariously. I don't have texting yet but, when I do, I will be a little better prepared based on your story.

I hope that nasty number stops texting soon!

Teresa Dawn said...

I don't have texting because I don't have a cellphone (I am very behind the times) but I have discovered that I can EMAIL my brother's cellphone from my computer and he receives it like a text message. This comes in handy when I want to get ahold of him while he's out as his cellphone number is long distance for me. He can also "text" my email address which I get as an email.

HalfAsstic.com said...

Oh, I SO feel your pain! And believe me! I have looked into blocking phone numbers in cell phones. To the best of my knowledge you can only set up your phone so that you can only receive calls from people in your phone book. That's what I did. But it wouldn't work for everyone.

Anonymous said...

I made fun of texting, too. But now I
text all the time. And I'm 20 years past
my teens. It's funny. The telephone replaced
the telegraph. Now texting has replaced the
telephone. I know why people text. It can't
be overheard like a phone conversation.
I missed you last week, btw. :)

Roger Miller said...

Welcome to the twenty-first century. :p

I think everyone our age has gone through similar experiences like this. Jenni has just recently caught the texting bug and has made well over 2000 texts in a two month time period. Thank goodness for unlimited texting. :)

And yeah, Blogger, texting is a word so get rid of those ugly red squiggly lines okay? Thanks.

The Sports Mama said...

Sadly, we text each other here in the house all the time. But to make sure I'm still delivering all the same awesome mom-ness my boys have come to count on, I make sure I still yell their names at the top of my lungs when dinner's ready. :)