Thursday, August 8, 2013

Just In Case You Were Curious

I don't know anyone as lucky as me when it comes to the texting department. My day is riddled with messages that, on many occasions, have sent coffee flying out of my nose. Usually the best messages arrive when there are throngs of professionals around me, serious and planning this mag or that issue. I know now not to even look at my messages. Since my laugh is utterly too loud according to my twelve-teen daughter, you can imagine the sound that my snickering guffaw makes down the marbled halls of, oh, let's say the Met Museum. Or worse, the tiny basement office of a human resources office...en route to do an interview. I don't know if it's a good thing or a poor reflection on my character that people send me these texts, know, I'm sure, that I'll laugh until I cry. And I can just see them on the other end of their iPhones, waiting, hoping my reply will be as witty and inappropriate.

For instance, take my friend Jamie, who, a few months ago sent me a text while I was in the waiting room of the doctor's office.

GOT THAT PUBLIC LEWDNESS CHARGED REDUCED. COMMUNITY SERVICE. I STILL CAN'T BE THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS TAKEN A PISS ON A NEW YORK SIDEWALK! AT 2 A.M. ANYWAY, I'M GONNA TRY AND GET CENTRAL PARK DETAIL, ALL THE CELEBS DO THEIR COMMUNITY SERVICE THERE.

He is an opportunist, Jamie is. Always looking on the bright side. I want to write a play with him someday. About life, liberty, hairy bears in New Jersey, and strategies for not blowing a piss test.

And then there is B. My sarcastic equivalent who happens to understand my genetic code for "nervous stomach" problems. She too shares those desperate moments in Barnes and Noble or the supermarket. With children in tow, of course.

THOSE DD COFFEES ARE LIKE NINJAS!

I can picture her flying down to the basement of her old office building, to the scariest most abandoned bathroom on earth, the clock ticking like a scene from a Hitchcock film. Tick, tock. She also sends me some lovely images from the People of Walmart website, usually around lunch or dinner time, so that I can properly gag at man's fashion and hair and hygiene decisions (or non-decisions). My response is the usual journalistic query:

WTF IS THAT? CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE WHAT HIS HAIR SMELLS LIKE? AND WHO FORGETS TO WEAR PANTS TO THE STORE...? I'VE BEEN CLOSE, BUT JEEZUS...

There really needs to be a book, or at least a website, that catalogues these texts. Think of the million hysterical comments we are missing. The profound insight. Even my daughter sends me, well, some of her best material. And my gentleman friend, whose random "sexting" messages usually blow up my phone while I'm visiting with my grandmother or at parent teacher conferences, is relentless. Just recently he dropped the Don Juan from Jersey messages in favor of a picture of the 'action' he was getting off our back porch. Three raccoons perched on our dome light, climbing up the side of the house. The accompanying text conversation (since I was across the state "glamping" on the Cape, while listening to a bratty-ass kid cry for 48 hours straight):

FUCKING RAMBO UP IN THIS PIECE. I DON'T THINK WE ARE GONNA HAVE ANY MORE PROBLEMS WITH THE RACCOONS...

WHY?

I TOOK CARE OF IT.

YOU USED THE AIR RIFLE DIDN'T YOU....(at least fifteen minutes elapsed)

I'M GONNA MAKE A NICE RUG FOR MY emoticon of a balding man....

The entertainment never ends. Just as I doze off to sleep, a fellow writer will text me a) a grammar question and/or b) that he's finally getting a piece. Good for him. Anna will text me from the other room that she doesn't want to clean the litter box.

TOUGH SHIT, KID.

YEAH, LITERALLY. THANKS, MOM.

Endless material. Endless.

There is no moral to this story, btw. Wear pants when you go out. Don't pee in the street. And watch out for laxative coffee.