Whenever my phone vibrates, a chill of equal tectonic force runs down my spine. I piece myself together and thumb through the inbox all the way to the tippy top where my new message lies. I quickly double tap the envelope with a loving force.
“hey…I’m supr bord…I hate skool.”
I live for this garbage. Call it an addiction, call it stupid, call it the truth.
Text messages continue to be the only things keeping my overly inflated ego so voluminous.
I got my ACT score back today, and I am a bit ashamed to admit it. Twenty-seven is a cool number if you’re a dead rock star, but that’s about it. Whenever I feel down about something like this, I cheer myself up by poring over my contacts list, which is sorted as follows.
Group 1) I contact these people on the rare occasions when I’m in a good mood. It’s made up of my two best friends, that’s it.
Group 2) For a day that’s just alright I text it up with some of my less intelligible friends.
Group 3) Most days I spend in communication with these people, it’s meant for every school day of the week.
Group 4) When I flunk three tests in a row, it’s time for me to dig up these numbers. It’s small group that’s made up of acquaintances from out of state and the occasional desperate freshman.
With such a vast array of possibilities I have a texting buddy to suit my every daily need, whether I did well on a test or got in an argument, it will all be reflected in who I decide to text.
The smiley-faced “skool” misspeller is a friend of a friend of a friend who lives half-way across the country and is (the best part) an under-educated tenth grade girl. Needless to say, I only talk to her when I need to get some real self-loathing out of the way.
This girl is a real winner. Most of our conversations involve the use of the word “hey” roughly twenty times, and I can text her from a time zone away. I pray that (for her feelings) she understands the type of relationship we have. I take her over-zealous congeniality and turn it into some kind of protein that codes for my innate ability to bounce moods back and forth.
Homework piling up? Winter got you down? I will give you this girl’s number. If you’re really stressed, call her. In fact I can see the advertisement for this type of service already.
A young man sits down to write his college dissertation. He freezes rock solid in the limbo of writers block, but no worries! He just pulls out his phone and (for a small fee) is consulted by one of my many under-paid operators. They hand-pick the person right for his situation…and…BANG! He’s right on the line with some toothless redneck who only knows how to read the differences on beer cans.
So here i am, sitting in my yellow pajamas, catching up with a dozen things all at once. What’s the only thing that makes it tolerable? A girl––texting my pain away.
