The Young and the Textless

Inspired by “They’re Old Enough to Text, Now What?” in The New York Times, I slipped into a daydream about what my now-distant childhood would have been like if we’d had texting. The first few scenarios that popped into my head had to do with my parents catching me at stuff:

Mother: WRU ?
Me: TOP BG PINE TREE
Mother: GT ASS DWN !

Father: MATH TST ?
Me: C-
Father: NO TV

Sure, texting would have allowed me to head off some of the decidedly un-warm-and-fuzzy moments of family life:

Sister: DAD FIRED !
Me: HIDE BOOZ !

Dad: SCOTCH ?
Me: OUT! (LOL)

But it would also have meant getting bad news even faster:

Me: CAR ?
Mom: REPO !

I wonder, would I still have been a bookworm if I’d had a cellphone?
I like to think I’d have still spent that summer reading all the Nancy Drew mysteries and pretending to be the intrepid girl detective:

Best friend: WHUP ?
Me: SLUTHNG. U ?

At worst I would have learned to type faster, which would come in handy now. Or maybe I’d have made a zillion dollars developing an ap for my iPhone that mapped all tall pine trees within a two-mile radius that were ideal for climbing. With little red flags marking any that were out of cell range.