Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Open phone, insert foot . . .

Last week, I was in Corpus Christi for a conference for work. During the conference, the Unit I work for had its annual meeting where all the different divisions get together for updates on protocol, etc. When we came into the meeting, we were given a packet of information in a large envelope. About halfway through the meeting, our boss called attention to the new phone lists for each division that were included in the packet. LITERALLY - yes, literally - 30 seconds later, I get a text from a number that's not programmed in my phone and the only thing the person said was "hello".

Naturally, I thought it was someone in the room who had just gotten my number from the new list and thought they'd mess with me. I tried to slyly look around the room without actually LOOKING like I was looking around the room. You know how that goes . . .

ANYWAY, my mysterious texter and I then had a little text exchange that went like this:

Mystery texter: Hello
Me: Hi! Who is this?
MT: Your worst nightmare
Me: Well, I doubt that. My worst nightmare is a Little Debbie Factory on fire. So try again . . .

[I secretly congratulated myself on that witty little quip and tried to avoid smiling at my own joke since someone was watching me. But I nonchalantly looked around to see if anyone was cracking up at my off-the-charts hilarity . . .]

MT: oh well not for long its going to be ME
Me: [going in for the kill, congratulating myself a little too early at the wittiness I'm about to whip out] Well, you use poor punctuation so you might be right . . . :)

[Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!!! Burn!!!! Whoever this is will laugh now and give in. We'll have a moment where we'll make eye contact across the room and he or she will give me a nod as if to say "Touche, my friend. Touche. You win." Like my own Mentos moment.]

I began to look around the room for my moment of victory. And then the next text came in . . .

MT: Hey im 11 and my initials are a.s.

Oh . . . crap . . .

Did I just insult an 11 year old's punctuation?????

Yep. That's what I did. My little friend Annie had just gotten a cell phone and was texting me for the first time from it. What are the chances that she would text me only SECONDS after my number was distributed around a room full of people I know? And on a day that I felt particularly feisty? It was the perfect set of circumstances and the worst possible outcome. I felt about an inch tall.

So, ironically, it really DID end up being my worst nightmare . . .

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