Geriatric texting

May 11, 2008
I got a surprise this week when my husband had unlimited texting added to our phones. My daughters have been sending me little messages as fast as their little fingers can send them out. I think I am entering the new age of texting but unfortunately, in my case, its Geriatric texting.
As parents we need to understand that email is fast becoming an out of date technology (the kids these days don’t roll with the email). If you are foolish enough to think that emailing from your desktop is keeping up with the times, I am about to give you some bad news, old person. Technology is changing, and if we old people want to keep up with the times, we had better learn to use the text option. Kids are into something faster and right now it is text messaging.

I am dead serious; my two daughters know more about technology life, than I knew after getting my Master’s Degree from an accredited university. We need to come to grips with our future. As parents, we are raising a smarter, more advanced race of people whose only purpose on Earth is to replace us…with something electronic!Unfortunately, there is nothing funny about this. If you are reading this blog, there is no doubt that you are old and out of date. Even when we think we are cutting edge with our email, maybe even a laptop, our cell phones, our mp3 players or ipods- we are falling farther and farther behind in using technology each and every day.

As I am rapidly approaching the old ‘double nickle’ birthday this summer I realized thatI am Ms. Pac-Man in an iPod world. I can even identify with that GoPhone commercial with a much older Meatloaf and a full figured Tiffany belting out “Let me sleep on it…..” I live in the present, and they (the new advanced young race) are learning for the future. Kids these days are growing up in a different world than I did. They have no knowledge of rotary phones, don’t understand why calculators were so cool, have never heard of a typewriter or carbon paper, Polaroid cameras, 8 track tapes, vinyl records, metal ice cube trays, or why there were phone booths at the gas station. These kids will never look at a clock or a watch to tell time (they use their cell phones), correct their own spelling on a writing assignment, or know the fear of what will happen at home if they are sent to the principal’s office at school.

They will never remember a world without MySpace, iTunes, Facebook, or YouTube.Our schools are so out of touch that students take keyboarding, 9 years after they are first on a computer. It is time to admit it. We are OLD. Not just a little old, I mean really old technology wise. The world is changing quickly. It has advanced since I started typing this three minutes ago (I type fast; in my previous life I did take a typing class in the high school; back when the dinosaurs were still roaming the Skuna bottom). Young people are not only smarter than we were at the same age, but they are smarter than us now. And they are getting smarter and smarter. We have no choice. As soon to be members of AARP, we must be proactive. We must get out of their way before they (the super technologically educated race) crush us like bugs.

It is time to run and hide and save what little pride we have left.I am going to lead the charge. I am bustin’ out. It is official, I am going to learn how to text. My daughter was going to help me, but she fell out laughing at how slow these old arthritic digits type in the words.

I read where there was an actual contest on the East Coast and a 13 year old girl won $25,000 after she tapped out in a mere 15 seconds, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! And even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious, her precocious little thumbs must still be in rehab!
I’ll have to learn to not worry about spelling and use acronyms more if I want to speed up. So let’s see if you can RdBTTLns. CN U RD THS? I’ve G2G. I’ll BRB 2C if U R ROTFL. Texting is a Gr8t way to send my ETA to the kids so they will know when I am leaving work headed home. As long as I KISS they NO WIM. (Translation: Read Between The Lines. Can You Read This? I’ve got to go. I’ll be right back to see if you are rolling on the floor laughing. Great way to send my estimated time of arrival. I’ll Keep It Simple Stupid and they will Know What I Mean)

I think it takes me longer to tap out a text message than it does for me to call them. But I have discovered that the messages seem to get thru when a phone signal won’t. So I guess I’ll use these old painful fingers and stretch my brain some more and figure out how to send these little messages. Maybe I’ll even invite Meatloaf and Tiffany to join me.