Text Support

Falling snow is a beautiful thing.

Driving in the snow?

Not so much.

I was reminded of that again last week.

During one of the nastiest storms we have seen in a while, I was on my way to meet my family at a dance competition.

They hitched a ride with someone else, so I was taking my wife’s car there.

She has the four-wheel drive.

On the way I noticed she was getting low on gas.

So I stopped to fill ‘er up.

That’s what nice guys do.

As I got to the station, I made the left.

But my car went straight.

Straight into a pole.

You know that they say about nice guys.

Thankfully I wasn’t going very fast.

And thankfully the air bags did not go off.

And thankfully no one was hurt.

Not in that order.

But the collision was strong enough to do some damage.

$2,600 worth.

And that was before I filled up the tank.

The good news is we have a deductible that makes this a little easier to swallow.

And the better news is our rates are not going to go up because of this little bout of man vs mother nature.

Or so we are told.

Moments after the crash, I called my wife to let her know what had happened.

She quickly checked to make sure I was ok.

Which I was.

Then she went all Barbara Walters on me.

“Were you on a call when it happened?”

“No.”

“Were you surfing the ‘net on your phone?”

“No.”

“Were you texting someone?”

“No.”

One of my single friends told me that the secret to a good marriage is...

Deny, Deny, Deny.

I’m not sure that I totally subscribe to that philosophy.

But in this case my deny, deny, deny was all true.

I was not talking, not surfing and not texting.

Just me vs black ice.

And the black ice won.

I really wish I could say that I never text while I drive.

But I would by lying.

And so would most of you.

According to one stat I just read, 1 out of 5 “experienced adult drivers” in the US send text messages while driving.

That would mean that close to 80% of the people polled were not telling the truth.

This disgusting addiction is not only awful, but it is incredibly dangerous.

If you don’t believe me, google “text” and “accident”.

Set aside a lot of time, and a box of kleenex, if you want to read all of the stories.

Unfortunately I can’t sit here and say that I am perfect and that I never text while driving.

But I can say, with all honesty, that I have made a very conscious effort to completely stop this pathetic habit.

And it’s a work in progress.

But it’s working.

When my kids are in the car, I have them dial for me.

Or text for me.

Or look up NBA Box Scores for me.

I have hooked up hands free calling, for both my wife and I.

I put my phone in a closed compartment to limit its availability.

I would like to say I am a success 100% of the time.

But I can definitely say that percent is growing every day.

My daughter even had me sign the Oprah form.

And you can’t lie to Oprah.

Many of my friends say they try not to text while driving.

But they still do.

Just today I was on the phone with a friend and we were talking about this very subject.

This friend shared a story that hit him hard.

Literally.

Last year he was stopping by work with his teenage son to get some things done.

They were traveling down a road at about 20 miles per hour.

The next thing he remembers is his car flipping over.

Apparently a driver of another car was moving down the same road at 35-40 mph.

35-40, while texting.

Well that driver slammed into one car.

And that car slammed into my friend’s car, totaling it.

The accident turned my friend and his son upside down.

They were both wearing seat belts, which left my friend suspended in the air on top of his son.

Fortunately the only pain the boy felt was when his dad unlatched his seat belt without thinking and landed on him.

They can laugh about it now.

Unfortunately my friend wasn’t quite as lucky.

In fact, since the accident, he has had three epidurals to deal with serious back pain.

And he’s not even pregnant.

I’m hopeful that a full recovery is not far away.

But when you think about what could’ve been it is downright scary.

Hopefully scary enough to stop you from texting while you drive.

And me too.

HRU, LOL, KIT & HAND

Let the games begin.

Our house is officially on the market.

I found that out a few days ago when my 13-year old daughter texted me a picture of the brand new “For Sale” sign now planted in our front lawn.

She titled it OMG.

My daughter has become quite good at texting.

And quite good at abbreviations too.

It is the spelling that has me concerned.

Luv.  U.  Ur.  Sez.  Thx.  L8.  Wut r u up 2?

Oh boy.

Somewhere Webster is burning his dictionary.

The world of text slang has become quite the rage.

And some of it can be wkewl, I mean way cool. 

When I did a search for a list, I found literally hundreds of ways to misspell words.

And a different acronym for every day of the yr. 

For example...

*$=Starbucks

d/c=disconnected

w’s^=what’s up

404 means I haven’t a clue.    

Which is perfect, because I haven’t a clue how you get I haven’t a clue out of 404.

Someday you may get a text that says TYCLO.

That means its time to Turn Your CAPS LOCK Off.

And who could live without PITMEMBOAM.

Any guesses?

Well the correct answer is, Peace In the Middle East My Brother Of Another Mother.

Seriously.  

If texting becomes an Olympic sport, my family may just have a medalist.

In both speed and quantity.

My daughter texts so much... 

...we got her the unlimited plan and she still went over.

That was E123.  Easy as 1, 2, 3.

But we really did get her the unlimited plan.

She and her friends text every day and I’m thrilled to say that I am still one of them.

It may sound impersonal or a good way to become d/c, but I think of it the opposite way.

Ultimate optimist that I am.

The way I look at it, between Skype and email and texting and dare I say, calling, we have four chances to stay in touch.

The reality is as much as I would like to speak with them every day, that’s just not realistic.

But texting, now that’s another story.

My goal is to have one line of communication with them every day, any type of communication.

And so far so good.

But sometimes its still not enough.

With each day that passes, I miss them more and it sounds like they are missing me as well.

This is what the text exchange between my daughter and I looked like yesterday:

Her:  How have you been?

Me:    I miss you A LOT, but I am doing fine.   How are you?

Her:   I miss u 2.  we r doing well.  (My brother) was sick yesterday but he is better now, (my sister) starts soccer 2morrow & i have my first dance competition in 7 weeks.  (My sister) is doin her state report on new york.  it has been tough w/o u here, but we r hangin on.

Me:   Hang in there the best you can.  This is the hardest part, but I am counting the minutes until I see you.   You are going to love it here.

I learned a few things from this latest exchange.

I learned that my punctuation is better than hers.

I learned that my grammar is better than hers.

I learned that my spelling is better than hers.

But I also learned that we are both hurting.

Actually I already knew it, but this was another reminder.

It was also a reminder of all the things that I am missing.

Our exchange seemed so basic at first, but when I went back and read the texts again, as I always do, the part where she said they are “hangin on” hit me hard.

Made me sad, actually.

I realize this is a temporary moment in our life and they realize it too.

And we both know that me getting a job was the best thing that we ever could’ve hoped for.

No matter where it was.

But after being at home for as long as I was, and getting to know each other as well as we did, being apart really sucks.

Whoever came up with this whole thing about absence making the heart grow fonder probably didn’t live thousands of miles away from their wife and kids.

Then again, they probably didn’t have Skype.

Or a cell phone.

Or unlimited texting.