For a Good Time Call
I don’t know why talking on the phone is beyond me, but as soon as I have to do it I lose the ability to hold a normal conversation and start in on this crazy word jumble. It sounds like I’m reading a Gertrude Stein novel out loud. Any time I think I can get away with texting instead of calling, I’ll do it.
Text messaging should have been a godsend for people like me, but I kind of think it’s raised my anxiety level. I’ll spend hours laboring over the right words for a text. I’ll overanalyze my friends’ response times to find hidden meanings. I once ended a relationship by sending a text to the wrong person. It may be better than calling, but it’s still incredibly stressful. After what happened this week, I think I’ll be even more stressed out in the future.
My friend is a text message junkie. A lot of us have been abusing texting for years– sneaking discreet texts under the desk during class, putting emoticons that don’t even correspond with human emotions in every message, and alienating our especially anal friends with poor spelling and grammar– so she’s not unique in this aspect. She was, however, very close to becoming a cautionary tale I’d tell my grandchildren about to scare them into good texting behavior.*
*In this scenario, texting still exists in 2060 and I don’t marry my cat in a Star Wars-themed wedding in my late 30s.
Here’s What Happened:
1. My friend’s phone, which went through more than any phone should go through in its brief time on this planet, finally gave its death rattle after falling into a pool. No amount of rice could resuscitate it. It was a dark time.
2. Because she never throws anything away if it might possibly be of use some day in the distant future, she disappeared into her room and came out with a RAZR. Remember RAZRs? They were a really big deal in 2004 when flip phones were all the rage, then everyone got phones with slide-y keyboards for about a month, and then society moved on to smartphones. Sometimes I think about Alexander Graham Bell and how freaked out he’d be if he time-traveled to the present. I like to imagine he’d do a lot of nervous beard-tugging. Anyway.
3. RAZRs come with T-9. As far as I know, T-9 is a predictive text technology and not a Terminator designed to destroy the human race. Although after what happened next, I began to have my doubts…
4. After charging the RAZR with a crank and attaching its generator (technology has come a long way since 2004), my friend typed a quick text message during a busy moment to a boy she’s been seeing.
5. JUST before hitting the send button, she read over the message. It was incredibly lucky that she did.
6. What she meant to type was, “Sorry if I snored last night. I haven’t been taking my medicine.” T-9 got a little silly, though, so what she actually wrote was, “Sorry if I pooped last night. I haven’t been taking my medicine.”
There’s really only one thing you can say in moments like this.
OMG.
She fixed it immediately, sent the correct version, and then texted me because she thought I’d think it was hilarious. SHE WAS RIGHT. I love this story. Every time I think about it, I start crying because I’m laughing so hard. I’m typing this in public and I keep laughing out loud even now. People think I’m crazy.
But seriously, you guys. POOP. That kills me!
A little, mean part of me wishes she hadn’t caught it in time just so I could have watched it play out. Imagine if you’d received that text.
Questions I’d Have if You Sent Me That Text
1. Where did the incident occur? The bathroom is acceptable, but I’d wonder why you felt the need to tell me. Outside is slightly less cool, but still ok as long as you brought a plastic bag or something to clean it up. Anywhere else is a deal breaker.
2. When is the soonest I can move? I don’t want to sound squeamish, but I think if a human over the age of two or three pooped somewhere in my house, I would have to move. It’s not like I could ever use that spot again. I couldn’t walk there. I couldn’t put furniture there. It would always be The Poop Spot. Even if I washed it a thousand times and re-carpeted, it would still be The Poop Spot. Whenever visitors or family members walked over it or stood on it, I’d stare at their feet and try not to think about poop.
3. The word “if” is worrisome. Why don’t you know whether it happened or not? Did you black out?
4. What kind of condition do you have that involves taking medicine to prevent this? What horrible disease makes you poop and black out?
5. How soon can we call it quits? Unless I was in an extremely serious relationship with someone, it would be incredibly difficult to bounce back from night-pooping. Would it be rude to immediately respond to that text message with, “I think we should stop hanging out”?
6. Even if you sent a follow-up text explaining the mistake, could I believe you? I’d probably still go home and check to make sure there was no extraneous poop in my house. I would maybe respond with a lighthearted “LOL” or even a “ROFL”, but inside I’d know I’d always be worried about you pooping.
It’s like Leonardo DiCaprio planted it deep inside my brain.
7. Eventually I’d probably come around and be able to look back on this and laugh, but I’d still need some answers. Why did your phone’s predictive text program default to “pooped” instead of “snored”? What have you been talking to people about?
Thank you for sharing this delightful tale and the resultant speculation, I have now laughed until my stomach hurts.
I also hate talking on the phone.
I’m not surprised by the phone thing, because of our shared INTJ problem. (And by “problem”, I mean WE’RE TOTALLY WINNING AT LIFE. DO YOU HEAR ME, EXTROVERTS?) I’m glad you weren’t too grossed out to laugh.
OMG! I’ve never laughed so hard at a blog post… tears, TEARS!! Love.
I was so worried people would be totally horrified by the subject of this post. Thanks for laughing instead of running away!
Everytime I get a strange predictive text typo (OR SO THEY CLAIM?) I too wonder why exactly it turned out that way… and what conversations they usually have via text to provoke it.
I also hate talking on phones, specifically cell phones (or mobile phones as we call ’em here in Aus) – you just never know what you’re interrupting. Calling a fixed line, at least you know they’re at home, near the phone but a mobile? They could be ANYWHERE. Doing ANYTHING.
Oh, man. Now I’m not going to be able to call anyone anywhere without worrying about what I’m interrupting.
Sorry petal ;-)
I’ll have you know, I was eating a delicious cup of vanilla yogurt as I read this post, and managed to burst out in a laugh mid swallow, resulting in projectile yogurt splattered across my screen and keyboard. So worth it. :)
Ha. Projectile yogurt. Very descriptive, and very hard to clean out of keyboards, I imagine. I.O.U. new yogurt.
I’ve sent way too many unfortunate typo-texts in my day. I think I called my mom a whore on at least 12 occasions…. by accident.
Haha. I usually catch them, but I’ve said some completely awful things to people via text message and MOST OF THEM were typos.
I laughed so hard I almost pooped my pants! And I have another question? Just when IS the right age to stop running to your table in a restaurant to announce “I just went poopie” to receive a round of applause from your friends and family? I saw this happen the other night and I was really jealous of the high-fives, applause, and “good job” accolades received by this individual. He was probably 4 and I’m almost 44.
Ha. The good news is that, while it becomes socially unacceptable to do that for most of your adult life, you can start up again as soon as you’re elderly!
OMG your questions at the end were hilarious! I can’t believe spell check changed it to poop! But mind you, even her original text was kinda odd. Did she want to bring his attention to the fact she snored?? From a fellow snorer, I know I tend to hide this embarrassing fact until forced to own up that it’s me and not a pneumatic drill in the bedroom.
That IS a little weird. I don’t know if I snore or not, because I’m usually unconscious when it’s happening, but I think I’d try not to acknowledge it as long as possible too.
This had me in tears, too. Twice. Once as I read it to myself, and again when I read it to my fella. Sadly, predictive text has become no better. Witness the fail at http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/
I love that site! I rarely laugh out loud when I’m reading blogs or other sites, but that one gets me every time. It’s usually a delayed reaction, too, because it’s not funny until I imagine what the other person did in response, but then I start crying because it’s so funny.
I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one that doesn’t have th ability to hold a good conversation over the phone! Texting has been one of the best inventions for me too, mainly because I’m really not a talker, just a writer. What happened to your friend is funny! Entertaining post!
Sometimes texting is the greatest thing ever, because I have more time to think of something clever and I know I’m not going to stumble over my words. Other times it’s the absolute worst.
A friend of mine recently had a ladyfriend spend the night, who was awfully drunk. Being the gentleman, he got her a puke bucket. She ended up using it, but in a fashion similar to your friend’s text. The next morning she acted completely normal and eventually left without saying a word about it. From his account, the pungent aroma in the room was impossible to miss. Oddly, they have not talked since.
Haha. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. I read this comment to like four different people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone THAT drunk.
Too funny! I used to have a RAZR for a long time after they were cool. My girlfriend was having a bad day and I had some plans to cheer her up. So I texted her “I’ll come over later to cheer you up”, which my RAZR’s T9 made into “I’ll come over later to AIDES you up”. I can’t honestly remember feeling more mortified in my life. Which is probably over stating it, but still.
Haha. That’s up there on the awkward mis-texts scale. On the bright side, maybe her day got a little better when she found out you were not, in fact, planning to give her AIDS.
Hysterical. I was just cracking up reading this. I think we laugh because it’s happened to all of us. Usually I catch the auto-correct (the T-9 of our day HA) before sending my text, but not always. I love reading “texts from last night” and “parents shouldn’t text” from those different websites. They get me every time.
I get cocky with auto-correct and just sort of slam my fingers into the keyboard until the words I want appear. Then I get really confused when I’m typing on a computer, hitting letters that are CLOSE to the ones I want, but nothing turns out right.
hahahaha too funny
Hilarious! WAY back in the day, when nobody had a cell phone and the only time we could laugh about inappropriate word replacements was on the computer with plain old typos, I wrote an e-mail to my friend complaining about a test we had to pay to write. My e-mail SHOULD have said “I can’t believe we had to pay to get tested”, but what it ACTUALLY said was “I can’t believe we had to pay to get testes”. Awesome! :)
Hahaha. I HATE it when you have to pay to get testes!
Totally. They should be covered by insurance or something…
So that’s about the funniest thing I’ve read in a while! I used to have a T9 phone a couple of years ago, and it definitely messed up a million and one text messages for me. I got into the habit of scrutinizing every text message before it was sent. Actually, my Windows phone does that now too… I have nearly sent the most embarrassing messages to people, so I think it’s less of T9’s fault and more the fact that we’ve stopped paying attention because our smart phones do things for us. (damnyouautocorrect.com anyone?) They’re taking over. The robot revolution is near.
That is totally how a robot would take me out, too. It wouldn’t have to fight me. It would just have to offend the people I’m trying to impress via text and I’d give up.
That makes perfect sense. Divide and conquer.
And THAT is why I don’t use T9. But I also haven’t entered the Smartphone world yet, so maybe the two go hand in hand.
The smartphone world is amaaaaaazing! (Except for all the times when it’s really, really not, which is why we have damnyouautocorrect.com)
Too funny! I had to constantly stop while reading to keep my laughter in check.
I know that feeling. I was thinking about the text at work and I kept trying not to laugh by pressing my lips together really tightly, but then I ended up doing this embarrassing raspberry thing. It was not good.
Thanks for sharing this story, it made me laugh at the end of an otherwise unamusing day. Will look forward to reading more…
Last night my roommate came up with 91 insane ways to break up with someone, so I anticipate future shenanigans. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for reading.
Holy poop. I cannot believe how hard I just laughed. I actually legitimately started to cry. It’s a good thing everyone in my house is asleep or they would worry. Good grief. I will for sure be following your gem of a blog. But only on the evenings when crying at my computer screen is an acceptable way to pass time. Thanks for that.
It’s unfortunate I’m reading this at work. . .absolutely hilarious. Nice FB post, but this is the one that made me want to read more, and why I followed you.
poop.
Never gets old.
This is the hardest I’ve laughed in I-don’t-remember-how-long. Thanks, I needed that!
Okay… I really did laugh out loud five times while reading this one. My dog is looking at me disapprovingly, as if to say, “You still laugh at poop jokes?” (She thinks she’s quite sophisticated.)
On the show Scrubs, JD eventually developed a problem where he passed out while or after pooping. You can view this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcJWHHtmDaU
You’re welcome.