Grandma Got Ran Over by a Cell Phone: 2012 The Year Grandma Cheryl Learned How to Text

MY  2012 New Year's Resolution - "I will learn to text." (Even if it's December 31, 2012 at midnight.  Yes, I can do this.)

Megan and MacKenzie, our two youngest daughters, volunteered to be my teachers (in exchange for a trip to Forever Twenty-One.)  Reading my cell phone directions book was not working.

MacKenzie said, "Mom you are going to have to learn texting language. For example, 'C U @ the pole.' It's kind of like 2012 shorthand.  It's a unique language like French or Chinese.  You can't speak British or American English if you want to be in the "texting club."

                                                   
Megan encouraged me, "Mom, you're an intelligent person.  So, take concepts you have already mastered in life and transfer them to texting."

"What like baking a Barbie doll shaped cake, mopping a floor, cleaning up vomit or changing a diaper?  That helps you with texting and how?"

MacKenzie commented, "You're a "try hard" at other things.  I wouldn't give up if I were you, unless you never want to communicate again with any human under the age of 80."

"So, if you can't text, no one will talk to you."

"Truth."

I soon learned that my text lessons needed to be from other 13 year olds, not my own.  Kind of like not taking stick shift driving lessons from your husband.

I lost friends my first month of texting because according to MacKenzie, "Mom you 'Overtexted!!!!!!!!!!"'.

Megan gasped, "Mom, you are making our family look bad.  There's rules, mom, in the world of texting and you are breaking them." 

I only knew how to text to people who had texted me, so that brought me up to a number towering of five. To practice, I kept texting them 92 times throughout the days with things like, "IIIIIIIILIKEORANGEJUUUUICE."

                                My "First Text" Exhibit at the Smithsonian (behind glass)

At first my five texty friends thought I was funny, but then they started ignoring me not just on texts, but also on land lines and at the grocery store.

Finally, a random 22 year old girl in Chipotle showed me how to use friends' phone numbers to text to them.  I felt like a twentysomething, if only for a moment.

Still some of my friends did not answer back.  Why?

MacKenzie said, "Mom you are ruining NASA research, some of the phone numbers you are texting are land lines, not cell phones, and your messages are out near Saturn."


Megs said, "Mom, you still have a lot to learn about texting, but texting has benefits.  If you get kidnapped Christmas shopping, you can text to let us know."