Next On: Sad Discoveries

I was frantically deleting all of my Tiger-like texts on the bus this morning. I was doing this because I realized if someone found my phone, determined my identity, and went inexplicably public with it my marriage and pro sports career would suffer irreparably. And considering neither of these things exist, it's hard to imagine them suffering any worse. But precautions simply had to be taken. While I was methodically deleting texts with tawdry deets I saw a menu option I had never seen before; "Templates".

Oh wow. My t9-enabled LG Shine had gone to the trouble of coming pre-loaded with text message templates. How I had not discovered these is probably because I'm usually too busy pretending t9 is still an adequate way of trying to type "misanthrope". I send most texts to myself.

Please call me back.
Nothing says "please call me back" like a missed call with a voicemail. If it got to the point where I still had not heard from someone, if I decided to text it would just say "Nevermind."

I'm late. I will be there at
And then they just leave it blank for you. I'm late. I will be there AT ARMS WITH MYSELF. I'm late. I will be there at THE HOSPITAL BECAUSE I'M LATE BECAUSE OF MY CARWRECK. This is silly. If I'm late, texting is only making me later.

Where are you now?
Why haven't you called? Who are you with? What have you been doing? Are we still on for tonight? What did they say about me? What did you say to them? What are you doing, Dave?

I'm on the way.
Can you stop the bleeding until I get there? What about this?

Urgent! Please contact.
I guess you use this if "Please call me back." fails? I don't know. Again, I feel like if something is urgent, you don't get a text. You get a voicemail. "Hey Stuart, it's me, look something strange is going on down here toda-OH MY GOD IT EATS THE CHILDREN LAST-OH MY G-"

I love you.
You're shitting me. You are shitting me like German scat porn. I could not believe this. So meaningless, trite, and mundane has our relationship become that I express affection through text templates. If you're the kind of person who texts "I love you.", you're probably the kind of person who uses text templates. So I guess there's a market. Also, you can send this to a bunch of people at once, wiping out the kids, parents, and strained spousal relation in one big mass-template-text of I love you. And then open a diet 7-up and watch the complacent tide of your terrible life drag you asunder toward the dark relief that is death.

Everyone have a great weekend.