How to Text

Apparently something called 'texting' is the new big thing that all the young kids are doing these days. To text you type a short message into your phone, and seemingly magically that same message appears on someone else's phone. Often the recipient is the one you intended, and often it is not. I don't know, it seems to be pretty random to me. Sometimes I'll get a text that says "Dave, can you pick me up? XOXO Mon." and I'll think to myself, "Who is Dave? I am David. Who could this possibly be referring to? And what's up with all the Xs and Os? Are we playing tic-tac-toe here? I do not know a Mon. Why does he/she assume that Dave will pick them up? Mon didn't even claify his/her location. What, is Dave supposed to just drive around using Apple Maps looking for Mon? Obviously not intended for me.
Or consider the text that came to me surprisingly on Sunday, "R U cming 2 the Church mtg this morning? Cani get a ride?" Once again, no idea why I got this. There was no clarity on who it was intended for, or who it was from. Probably it was Mon again, looking for a ride from Dave. Maybe Dave owns a taxi service? Beats me. Now I am hip enough to know that "R U cming 2" must be some sort of abbreviated form of writing. After sounding it out loud for 3 full minutes, the closest interpretation I can come up with is "Rude Awakening 2." It's probably in reference to a sequel to the not yet released "Rude Awakening 1," featuring Val Kilmer as an alarm clock, Nicholas Cage as the bed, and the Tinman as the nocturnal sleeper. Based on my inferences, I am forced to believe I was being invited to the director's screening of Rude Awakening 2 being shown at the Church. After some Google searches I've concluded 'mtg' has to be short for 'mitigate,' which doesn't seem to go with anything else included in the text. Man this is difficult! By this point I've easily spent 2 hours, about 27 Google Searches, and spent upwards of $40 on spy/intepretation equipment all trying to decipher this blasted message from someone I don't even know, presumabely Mon who I also don't know! At least the 'get a ride' part was easily understood. The last word I was trying to fit into the sequence of mitigate and Rude Awakening 2, is 'Cani.' Short for canoli? California? Carney spelled wrong, and shortened? Candy spelled wrong and shortenend? Morgan spelled wrong and shortened? There really is no possible way I could ever figure out what 'Cani' is.
Eventually I just sent a text message to the person in my phone labeled "My Sister," explaining the whole situation to her with full, real sentences. Apparently you can only send a certain number of characters in a text message, and seeing as my message was the equivalent length of 4 Chinese scrolls, she was a little annoyed that I used her monthly allotment in one afternoon just to explain about some movie she didn't even  want to see. Yep, it's going to take a lot of convincing to get me to try 'texting' again. For now I'll just stick with my tweets. Those are so much easier to deal with.