If you know me at all, you know I’m not a technology snob.

My television is about 18 years old (seriously), I don’t have a Wii, my only iPod is a shuffle (and it was a gift), and I still can’t really comprehend how TiVo works. So it’s understandably not my style to judge people based upon their collection of electronic gizmos.

However.

Hunter has GOT to get a new phone.

When I first met Hunter, I thought it was really becoming that he didn’t fall prey to the technology buzz. He had the same phone he’d had for the past three years, and though it didn’t have a touch-screen or 3Gs or 4 bajillion pointless applications, it made calls and got the job done. And most importantly, it didn’t require him to spend money that we poor college folks simply don’t have.

But eight months later, I’ve changed my tune.

Now don’t misunderstand me; I still find Hunter’s frugality extremely attractive. But there is something inexplicably wrong with his phone now, and it’s causing some very weird conversations to occur between us.

It all started when he sent this text about me finding a home in Tulsa:

“I’m ready for you to commit to that apartment so I know where we both are going to live, but don’t do it until you’re sure. You back in Norman in 1 hour and 30 minutes, then I need to clean up. How was the baby shower?”

Point A) That makes no sense.
Point B) The baby shower he was referring to occurred the previous day and had already been discussed in detail.

Huh.

But I didn’t think too much of it at the time, and thus proceeded about my day.

Then later that week, he sent me this regarding his upcoming garage sale:

“I have some somewhat valuable stuff that I may otherwise have to trash. I think I’ll just give it a one day chance. 🙂 This is an exciting time in our lives, though stressful. We are both accomplishing great things in the very near future!”

Nothing too weird there…kind of a strange change of topic, but these are texts, not master’s theses.

So I said:

“I hope so! I’ve still got a lot to do before I can feel accomplished, but at least we’re making some headway.”

And then he never responded.

Hmm.

But several days passed without incident, and I soon forgot about the seemingly dysfunctional text conversations Hunter and I had been having as of late.

Until he sent me this:

“What are your plans for this evening? I’d like to run over to Barnes and Noble and pick up a book, then trash it.”

I’m sorry, WHAT?

Upon reading that I knew, knew there was something sketchy going on, because Hunter is not the type to buy a book with the intention of trashing it. Not that trashing books is a common desire among any group of people, but Hunter’s pretty type-A and therefore not into destroying perfectly good tools of knowledge.

So, I called him (as texting was clearly failing us) to figure out what the deuce was going on.

After a few minutes of detective-like handy work, we discovered that half of his texts were being sent immediately upon composition, and the other half were being sent the following day. Not only that, but they were also being tacked on to the end of new text messages, so that instead of receiving:

“I’d like to run over to Barnes and Noble and pick up a book about business,”

I received:

“I’d like to run over to Barnes and Noble and pick up a book, then trash it.”

W. T. F?

Since this problem was detected it’s cleared up a lot of confusion between the two of us…questions like, “Why would she text about feeling accomplished in response to me talking about a garage sale?” have been clarified, and we’ve tried to lessen our texting so as to avoid further bewilderment. But from time to time you just gotta text, and so wires inevitably continue to get crossed. Yesterday Hunter said this about the increasing occurrence of my headaches:

“I think you should go back to the doctor and get it checked out. Please don’t be angry with me. 🙂 ”

So I said:

“Don’t worry! I’m not angry with you! I just don’t have time to go to the doctor.”

And I immediately got a call from Hunter, laughing uncontrollably and explaining that never had he said “please don’t be angry with me.” Blasted piece of trash PHONE.

The moral of this story is, Hunter will be getting a super trendy iPhone when he starts his new job in June. It needs to happen. Yes, financial thriftiness is a plus, but never at the expense of a couple’s communicative harmony.

For I can live without fancy technology and blackberry-esque bells and whistles, but I simply cannot live without texting.

Much love.

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iPhones, Technology, text messages