I sometimes wonder how we ever got along without text messages. Can anyone remember back to the Stone Age when we had to leave messages on post-it notes on the refrigerator? Text messages are succinct, impersonal, generally poorly spelled and often grammatically incorrect. In short, they are perfect for 21st century communications.
But as indispensable as text messages are, lately their shortcomings have become all too apparent to me. Recently I experienced an incident that will certainly not alter the rotation of the earth but has probably taken several years off my life.
Several weeks ago I was at a meeting in Seattle and afterwards I was flying home on the redeye. On the way to Seattle airport I got a text message from my younger brother, which I ignored. I don’t mean to be cold, but my younger brother sends so many text messages every day that I don’t have time to read them individually so I usually read them in clusters and send a universal, non-specific response such as “Go figure!”
I opened his message at the airport and my heart skipped a beat when I saw he had written: “Ma had bad fall. In ER now. Have a good trip!”
Ignoring my instant headache, I checked for his follow-up message. There was no follow up text message. My headache intensified: If my brother sends a text telling me what he had for dinner, his follow-up message tells me about dessert. The fact that there was no follow-up could not be a good sign.
I quickly checked the time he sent the text, calculated the time difference from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale and determined it was 2 AM at home. I didn’t care. I called my brother’s cell phone and got his voice mail. In quick succession I called the cell phones and home phones of all my siblings and got all their voicemails.
I was getting on the plane for my 6-hour flight when my cell phone alerted me that I had a new text message. Fingers fumbling I opened the message from my brother and read: “Ma is”
“Ma is …… what?” I wondered. “Ma is OK?” “Ma is dead?” “Ma is in a coma?” My headache was near blinding so I called my brother again and got his voicemail. I was resolving to shove my brother’s cell phone down his throat the next time I saw him, just as the flight attendant, giving me the evil eye, told me all cell phones had to be turned off.
It was the longest flight of my life, and by the next morning when I arrived in Fort Lauderdale I was considerably grayer than when I left. When I landed I was gratified to see that I had 18 text messages from my various siblings.
Reading them one by one I was able to piece together that Mom was a little shaken up but none the worse for wear. They had kept her in the ER for observation and released her several hours later and she was back at home with my sister. She was a little restless but my sister was going to give her a good breakfast and put her back to bed.
As I was making my way through the 18 text messages my headache abated and I was feeling more forgiving towards my siblings. Then I got to message #18 from my older sister, whose keyboarding skills are not keen. My headache came back with a vengeance.
“”Ma 8 good breakfast,” texted my sister. “Now that she’s ded she is much quieter. Luv u!”