Text Messaging

I'm not sure when talking on the phone went out of style, but I overheard a woman on the train complaining that her teenage son had racked up a $1000 cell phone bill last month. Apparently, he was text messaging with his girlfriend. Have you ever tried typing with your thumbs on a numeric keypad? You have to push the "2" button three times to get a letter "c". So, by my calculations, if I wanted to spell "car", it would involve no less than seven key presses.  This leads me to the stunning conclusion that the phone company must be charging per key press! I mean otherwise, nobody could have $1000 worth of messages, right? So, as a service to my teenage readers, I'll suggest that you use words that involve the least amount of key presses. Words like "add", "mat", and "an". Words that contain only a, d, g, j, m, p, t, and w are the best. Words that contain b, e, h, k, n, q, u, and x should be used sparingly. Words that contain c, f, i, l, o, r, v, and y should be avoided. The dreaded letters s and z should never be used. While this might not be conducive to any sort of meaningful conversation, I can assure you all as a former teenager, that no conversation you have via text messaging (or any other medium) is actually meaningful. I might also suggest that you just use the damn phone for talking like every other annoying human being on the planet.