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IMHO LOL

Category: Life

Published on Saturday, 26 June 2010 05:00

Written by Paul Roy

While sitting behind the dirty windshield yesterday, I was thinking about cell phones, more specifically texting on cell phones. I had heard on the news that out legislature here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had just banned testing while driving in the state. And as always happens when the legislature does anything, which isn’t too often, the political side of me kicked in and I wondered how this law would affect me. (No, I’m not going political on you)

I came to the conclusion it would not affect me in the least. See I can’t text while I am driving anyway, heck, I can’t text while I’m sitting still. Sometimes I’ll have people in my tow truck who will spend the whole time they are in my truck just texting away, why they wouldn’t want to pay attention to me while I impart all my wisdom and knowledge onto them, who knows. I never knew people could use their thumbs in such fashion. I’ve even seen some text with just one hand, although they are the ones who are driving at the time.

Now me on the other hand (no pun intended) have trouble with two hands. If someone texts me, the first thing I have to do is figure out how to answer the thing. I can’t just flip the phone open and say hello, although I have tried. Then since I don’t wear my reading glasses when I drive it is necessary to either remove the glasses I have for driving or cock my head up and try to read under them. And by the time I am done doing this and twisting and turning the phone to eliminate any problem of glare, I am usually off the road and into the ditch, which allows for plenty of time for me to read and text.

In the rare instances when I actually can read the message, it is usually written in some type of ancient hieroglyphics which makes absolutely no sense to me. I’m sure that “wu? B hm sn nd any th? Ttly” means something to somebody; it certainly means nothing to me.

Then on those rare instances I can actually decipher the code there is the problem of answering. My phone gives me three choices on how I can send a message back, txt, flix, pix and tac (which I think means “take a chance”). I won’t even attempt to try this when I am driving, so if it is important I have to stop the truck, usually I don’t stop in the middle of the lane I am in, and now do the old hunt and peck typing maneuver many of us perfected in college when we had to type those term papers. Of course, not having those reading glasses mentioned above, I can’t see the letters on the keys, and by the time I find the right one, the screen has usually gone dim from the power saving feature, which creates a real problem at night.

I figure it takes me about 15 seconds per letter, if I don’t need numbers, caps or punctuation. Since I am normally in a rush, my responses are usually limited to “Y” or “N”. I did have the bright idea to let a teenager who was in the truck answer for me one day. His mother just smiled as he answered the text from my better half. I thought I was all set and had found a new way to answer from then on, until I got the bill which showed 5,289 texts in a brief five minute period.

Needless to say I haven’t done that again.