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| Image, copyright Teece Aronin |
I have a history of this kind of thing. Let's say I'm seeing a man who's on the road a lot. Invariably I'll say something like: "Text me when you get to your hotel - even if you think I'm asleep." The next day I see the text he sent at 1 a.m. then read my reply. I am absolutely mortified.
About a year ago I was in bed with the flu when a man I was dating texted.
"What can I do to help you?" he asked - from Duluth.
I'd been napping, was high on over-the-counter flu meds and wasn't wearing my glasses. I wrote back: "Just come on me once in a while."
I have no idea how that happened when what I thought I wrote was, "Just check on me once in a while." Notice that some of the accidental letters in that text aren't anywhere near the intentional letters.
There was another time when I was sleepy and sick and trying to talk to a boyfriend on the phone. Suddenly he wasn't there so I groped for the wall socket then texted to explain. I wrote: "My O just died."
No it hadn't. My phone had just died. I was far too out of it to have had an O at that moment, but if I had, it would have just died, too.
I'm often struck by what lovely gentlemen I've dated as not one of them pretended to notice any of the misfires including those described above. Then again, they probably wept with laughter, waved over every guy in the bar and wheezed out the words, "Look at what my passed out girlfriend just texted!"
You know, that whole texting while sleepy thing used to embarrass me but I'm past all that. I just do my best to tap the right letter and if I happen to land anywhere within three letters of the right letter, I'm happy.
Let men play Alan Turing to my Enigma. Let them struggle to understand me for once.
And by the way, the title of this essay is actually: Oh, Don't Let Me Text When I'm Sleepy.
I shouldn't be allowed to blog either.
