Cell Phone Secrets

I have procrastinated until the last minute writing my blog and turning in homework for a class I’m taking. But I’m not worried about it because I discovered something very cool that will save me a lot of time so maybe I won’t be behind in the future.

My daughter showed me how to text without having to type each letter. What a revelation! I’ve avoided texting except to my kids when they refused to answer their phones because it took so darned long to do it. My phone just has the numbers and letters together so #2 is ABC. It was such a nuisance because I had to think all the time about whether to hit the number once or twice or three times so it took two hours to type one sentence.

My daughter, in stark contrast, has thumbs that dance over the keyboard like somebody doing an Irish jig. She was sitting beside me on the sofa texting and said, “Wanna see how fast I am?” Before I could say, “Yes,” my phone was beeping with the text message, “I already sent you this message before you could even answer, that’s how fast I am – just like a lightning bolt!”

“How did you do that?” I said in complete awe. I don’t know if I would have been any more amazed if she’d jumped on the ceiling and started walking upside down like that pig in the Simpson’s movie while Homer Simpson sang (to the tune of Spiderman) “Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a Spider Pig does.” I love that scene.

At first my daughter claimed she was just extremely agile when it came to thumbs, but she finally confessed that the phone had a button that, if selected, allowed you to type each letter on the phone only once and it would automatically figure out what word you wanted and put it in your text. I am not explaining this well, but the gist of it is, instead of having to hit the #2 button three times to get the letter C, I only had to hit it once, then hit my next letter once, and the little genius inside the cell phone would read my mind and know what word I was trying to peck out.

“But what if it doesn’t know or gives me the wrong word?” I asked worriedly. “Then hit Zero and it will give you options,” she said with a sigh, already bored and wanting to continue texting without being interrupted. She texts continuously, but if I ask who she’s on the phone with, she won’t say. “It’s a bunch of people, mom.”

“Like who?”

“Like a bunch of people I know.”

“Can you text them all at one time?”

And then she lets me know how utterly awful it is to have to explain these extremely simple things to a blunder head like me. “YES, mom, now leave me alone.”

I don’t know how she got so impatient. I can remember answering the same questions over and over when she was a kid. Just the simple, “Is it done yet?” must have been asked 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. But did I ever tell her to leave me alone? Maybe – I wouldn’t put it past me. Still, I hardly bug her because she does get so impatient, and I know I was the queen of patience when she was little so I certainly don’t deserve this.

However, I’m not going to say anything because she might get another sweet streak and show me some more secrets of cell phones, so I want to stay on her good side.