“That makes you look old,” daughter informed me this week, as she watched me do something I do several times a day.
Was she looking at emerging “non-pigmented” roots along my hairline? (I prefer not to use the “g-four letter word.”)
Reach for reading glasses?
Inspect a new crevice working it’s way onto my face?
Oh, I do have all that going on.
This, however, is bigger, according to my daughter.
More public. More horrifying. And something she thinks I can control.
See, the thing is — I text. Which is awesome and modern, yes?
But, there’s this: I do it with my single index finger.
Yes, I, who did so well in seventh-grade typing class, who can rock a QWERTY keyboard with my eyes closed.
When it comes texting on my phone, I hunt and peck, my right index finger leading the way.
“Why can’t you use your two thumbs?” my daughter asks with mild disgust, as she demonstrates thumbs ablaze over the lower third of her phone.
“I didn’t know this was an issue,” I say in shocked old person shame.
Did you, Dear Reader?
Did you know a teenager can tell your age by how you text as sure as an arborist can count the rings of an ancient redwood?
I certainly wasn’t going to make Daughter the final authority on this or any other issue.
So, I went to the font of truth. I posted on Facebook.
“Have been informed by certain teen daughter that I text like an old person because I use single index finger instead of double thumb method. What say you?”
“She’s right,” so many commenters weighed in. “Makes you look old.”
So much for Facebook “friends” having my back, or my thumbs, as the case may be.
I would make the argument that it’s not a matter of age, rather something I’ve had since I was much younger. My whole life, actually.
Fat thumbs. Make that fat, flat thumbs.
For me to try to get any semblance of a message out using these paddle-shaped digits would create only a jumble of an alphabetic mess that even “auto-correct” couldn’t make sense of.
It’s like trying to talk with 42 saltines shoved in my mouth. You’re not going to understand what I’m trying to say and what sprays out sure isn’t going to be pretty.
I’m willing to get out the hair dye bottle. I’ll shuffle around for reading glasses. Botox? Let’s just say, “under consideration.”
But double thumbs? Sorry, just not going to happen.
And Daughter? Oh, I have big plans for her.
A friend just showed me that microphone icon at the bottom of the screen.
Forget index finger hunt and peck texts.
Here comes my stream of consciousness, rambling texts.
Won’t be long before she’ll think of texts from my index finger as “the good old days.”
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