Do you text, or txt, message? If you are under the age of 30 you probably do and don’t think twice about it. If you are over the age of 30 you probably struggle a bit with the whole thing.

I do text message. Reluctantly. I don’t really like to but in some cases it is the only way to communicate with people in my little world. My son has a cell phone but the school scrambles the phone lines during classes. They aren’t able to do the same with text messaging. So if I want to get a message to him during the day I have to text him. Ex#2 is not allowed to talk on his phone during work so I also have to text him if I need to get a message to him. My brother just prefers to use text messaging so if I want to talk to him I have to text him to call me.

I am one of those people who writes out every word in a text message. This is probably why I don’t care to do it all that often. typing with one or two fingers on a tiny little screen takes patience and concentration, two things I lack.

Today I had to text Ex#2 to remind him to take our daughter to an after school activity.

Me: Will you take M to her music lesson today after school? Let me know, thanks, J

His response: k

Just “k”. Presumably that means “okay” but who knows, he could have hit the keypad incorrectly and sent it off on accident. Not likely but you never know. This is my baby and I want to know that she is “k” at all times. I don’t think communicating in English is such a bad thing. Lord knows her father and I don’t communicate all that well to begin with so I don’t think I am asking too much.

Of course I am, that’s probably the biggest contributing reason we are divorced, we are not able to communicate, but I can always hope can’t I?

My son is a different story altogether. I text him something in full English and he knows he must respond the same way or I will not respond to his text messages in the future. I have taught him well, if I do say so myself.

Me: Did you hand in that note I gave you to the office today?

Him: Yes, mom. I did it as soon as I arrived to school.

Me: Thank you, honey.

Him: You are welcome, mother.

There might be a little sarcasm in his text messages but since I can’t hear his tone of voice I am assuming he is just a lovely and polite son.

He doesn’t text this way to his friends. He is bilingual.

Him: r u driving 2 robotics?

Friend: no rn’t u?

I can’t even make a decent example of real text messaging. My fingers and my brain just won’t get on the same page, but you get the drift.

I know why I can’t text like a teenager. I’m not one. I learned how to type in 7th grade with all the other girls in my class. Boys didn’t need to learn how to type since they would have women to do that for them. I type faster than I think. This should be obvious if you have read any of my posts or comments. I get ahead of myself and if someone talks to me while I am typing I have to hit the backspace key until I find where my thoughts were interrupted.

In my head I can’t make the switch to text messaging lingo. I can’t say R when I mean “Are”.

I blame Prince and his Revolution for this. He started using U instead of “you” decades ago. His song “I Would Die for U” is probably the first record of text messaging making it into everyday language, and we didn’t even have text messaging back then.

Damn you Prince.

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