FYAC, DIAF

On November 4, 2015November 4, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

giphy-1 Naturally, this happens the week after Searching for Malumba comes out. Consider it a bonus story.

I have a number of former students with whom I am in at least irregular contact. One of them, a former DC student, which is why she has my phone number, reliably texts me three or four days a week about something or another. Today I got a text from her as I was leaving the house. She was griping about her teeth; she’d just been to the dentist and had them (apparently rather thoroughly) cleaned, and they hurt. I reassured her that it was unlikely that her teeth were going to hurt forever and went on my way– which, at that particular time, involved going and getting in my car to go pick up my son. A moment later, I got three more picture texts– I can tell when someone sends me a picture because of the way my watch shows me the notification, but can’t actually get a thumbnail or anything.

I, waiting at a red light, glanced at the pictures a couple of minutes later and realized that she’d sent me three pictures of her new high school, since they just moved. She thinks it looks like a jail. She’s right.

I don’t text while driving often (he said) but when I do, I voice text, and it’s generally pretty damn accurate. I sent her the following message:

It took me a minute before I had a chance to look at those and at first I thought you had sent me pictures of your teeth.

Because, of course, she’d just come from the dentist! Smile a couple of times– hell, point the camera at the filling in your molar, hell if I know– and send off the pictures of your nice freshly cleaned teeth. Not an out-of-context picture of a jail-like school building.

I glanced at my phone before hitting Send. Thank fucking God.

It took me a minute before I had a chance to look at those and at first I thought you had sent me pictures of your titties.

…

WHAT THE FUCK, VOICE TEXT. This is supposed to be an adaptive program, right? It learns your voice and all that shit. Y’all have been reading me for a minute. You know I swear. You have hundreds of thousands of words of my writing to wade through on this site. I dare you to find another place where I said “titties.” Why the fuck would my phone think I said “titties” when I said “teeth”?

I’d have had to drive off a bridge. I’d have had to find a bridge, because hell if I can think of where the closest one is off the top of my head, and then I’d have to drive off of it, because my only options at that point would have been to be arrested or to become an internet meme.

Phones are stupid.

Random question for the olds

On December 29, 2014December 29, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized32 Comments

I’m guessing you’d need to be at least 30-35 for your answer to this question to matter to me– old enough that you spent your life on analog/wired phones, and that you bought *yourself* your first cell phone. Two questions:

1) Do you actually remember getting your first cell phone? Like, was it an Event? Can you describe the phone, or nail down what year it was that you bought it?

2) Can you remember sending or receiving your first text message? (Preferably, for the purposes of this question, these two events did not occur on the same day– in other words, you had a cell phone before text messages were a Thing.)

Just curious. And, for the record, I’m just as interested in the “no” answers as the “Yes, this is when it was” answers, so if you don’t remember one of the two, let me know. Thanks.

In case you ever thought I was smart

On July 16, 2014July 16, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

I’d like to point out that Chuck Wendig is a Real Author and this is therefore somewhat more humiliating than it ought to be. I have literally been complaining about “ducking” since I got an iPhone and this is the first time it’s been pointed out to me that ducking actually is a goddamn verb.

I is a writar!