The Trouble with Texting

Future bro-in-law Doug put it best when he said, “I just got a text message that says ‘Merry Christmas.’ Thanks. That cost me a quarter."

For those of us who don’t text, receiving them is inconvenient since we don’t have it built into our plans. And even though I’ve never received a text message that was of any importance, I still can’t help but check them when that little “T” pops up on my phone. So over Christmas I, too, got about a dozen that just said, “Merry Christmas.” Thanks. Hey, why don’t you call me collect next time?

And I never know who text messages are from unless I hit reply, see the name show up and then hang up quickly before the call actually goes through.

I mean, if they don’t want to talk to me, I don’t want to talk to them.

So thanks to those generic Christmas messages, I had an extra $3.36 tacked onto my cell phone bill last month. I saw that and said, “That’s it! I’m not reading anymore text messages.”

You might say, “Why don’t you get a plan that includes text messaging?”

To that I say, “I don’t like it.”

So the point of this blog isn’t really to rant about my disdain for texting (for that, you can refer to my IM blog), but rather to explain to the person who texted me last night:

“Thanks for the text that I’m sure said ‘Happy Birthday’ but since I have a no-texting policy now I deleted your text without opening it so I don’t know who you are. If you want to wish me well, I accept many other forms of communication: phone calls, emails, blog comments and regular mail. Oh, and I wanted to also wish you a Merry Christmas…free of charge.”