Du U H8 Texting?

So I was reading the paper the other day, and there was this big front page cover story about how the kids these days are just texting and IMing each other. And I thought to myself, "Well, further proof that abstinence-only education programs just don't work." But then I read further and I realized I was thinking of something completely different.

Anyhoo, in this story, all the kids were saying that it's just so much more convenient to text their friend than e-mailing them. E-mailing, to them apparently, is a dead technology. And here I am, at 30, experiencing the second time I've ever felt old. The first time was when I found out my young teenage cousin was being taught by a guy I graduated high school with who had already been married and divorced. But that's neither here nor there.

So kids these days text each other to save time. To save time? Is it just me, or does anybody else lose patience with texting another person really quick? Even just typing "Hi" means you have to find wherever the h is on the phone and then press it twice ... because h is not even the first freaking letter on that button. It's g. And I've got no time for a g thing baby. So you have to press this button twice to get h. And here's the thing ... after h in "hi" is i, right? But you have to wait for the phone to recognize that you're absolutely sure you want that h, so you wait. And then when your phone decides, "Yes, this person really wants to use h here," then it moves to the next space so you can input an i. Because you can't input it beforehand, because then it will screw up your h, and then you have to start all over. You know why? Because the h and the i are on the same fucking button! That sounds like a lot to go through, doesn't it? That's just "hi," only the first word in 80 percent of conversations people have everyday. And it's two letters! Can you imagine trying to work out complete sentences on this thing?

It's especially problematic for people who like to think of themselves as, you know, intelligent. You feel a desperate need to write out the whole damn sentence and make sure it's spelled correctly and it's grammatically correct. And it's a bitch, because cellphones don'’t come with spell check yet. I know I'm not the only person in the room who uses that crutch.

But the kids, they have their own language. Instead of typing out "you," they put in a U. Instead of typing out "are," they put in an R. Instead of typing out "hate," they put in an H and an 8. I never understood that one. Is "Do" DU? They make up all kinds of abbreviations because they can't be bothered to type out they are laughing out loud. But you can almost see the logic here, because I'd imagine typing out sentences with single letters saves you a lot of time if you were writing to the illiterate.

But here's the thing that burns me the most. Obviously, as you can tell, I'm not a big fan of texting, so I don't do it. But some of my friends continue to text me. But when I want to do something that would save me time in a conversation (otherwise known as "call them right the fuck back"), they don't even answer the phone. Bastards.