Text From: Dad Cell

I'm always impressed when someone's parents know how to text. I've tried to teach mine, but have only been successful with my dad. My mom decided she needed to learn to text after hearing a news story where a girl who had been kidnapped or something let her parents know where she was via text message. After unsuccessfully sending some blank texts, my mom decided that I was too old to get kidnapped anyway and gave up on the whole text message thing. My dad, on the other hand, has joined modern times and, with lots of practiced, has mastered texting. At first, his messages were a little jumbled since he couldn't find any punctuation or backspace keys. This caused me to get messages like:
"Mom and Janet are at Beechywood mall oh no shopping loveljoo"
My dad's text messaging skills have much improved since then, but the content of the messages is still kind of strange. To fully understand this, you must first know a couple things about my father:
1) He loves trashy reality TV Nevermind that networks such as E! and VH1 target audiences of women and gay men, my dad can't get enough of Rock of Love or Dr. 90210. After watching the season finale of Tila Tequila by myself, I needed to talk to someone about how crazy it was. Naturally, I called my dad, who answered the phone with "Did you just WATCH that??? How GREAT was that?! Tila is SUCH wreck!" Comparing notes on The Girls Next Door may seem like a strange father-daughter activity, but we are really just arguing about who really loves Heff and who is just in it for the money (we have come to the agreement that Holly really does care about Heff and Kendra is just a tramp). At family dinners, it is pretty nice to have someone with whom to discuss the girls of Flavor of Love. There are some shows that I don't even watch that my dad enthusiastically fills me in on, like Gene Simmon's Family Jewels. Now that you understand (or at least are aware of) my dad's love of trash TV, you might expect that I get some trash TV themed text messages. The other day, while doing homework, I received this one from him:
"Did you see the season premiere of Dr. 90210?"
I had not seen it, but after calling him, he recounted the tales of Dr. Rey and his wife to me, insisting that I watch the episode sometime. You would think that would be the end of the Dr. 90210 texts for a bit, but the texts seemed to take on a plastic surgery theme.
Dad: "am playing golf and almost just got hit"
Me: "be careful!"
Dad: "No kidding. If I am disfigured I will have to call Dr. Rey"
Fortunately, no reality TV show doctors needed to be called, though I'm sure my dad would have been thrilled to meet the real Dr. Rey

2) My dad tells really corny jokes. Everyone's dad tell really corny jokes. When these "dad jokes" are condensed into text messages, they become that much more ridiculous. Here is the most recent text conversation between my dad and me:
Me: I got my first boxing bloody nose of the season
Dad: Great. What did the other girl look like?
Me: Bloody mouth
Dad: Awesome. I will have a piece of apple pie in your honor
Me: You were going to have pie anyway
Dad: You are right but now I will have two pieces.
I don't really know what eating apple pie has to do with a family member's athleticism, but I think my dad really needed an excuse to eat pie.

3) My dad is sometimes really inappropriate, hence this text:
"I am eating pizza at stumpys with the geezers and stumpy is our waiter"
Stumpys is a pizza joint in Port Clinton and that's not actually its name. Stumpy is the owner of the pizza place, and that is not actually the man's name. My dad refers to him as Stumpy because he has one arm. He is surprisingly agile with his incomplete arm when it comes to carrying pizzas. "Geezers" is what my dad affectionately calls his friends.

Texting is a wonderful thing, especially when it comes to communicating with my dad. It condenses all his strange characteristics into compact little messages. At least I know that if I get kidnapped, I'll have a text message from my dad to make me smile.


*Note: After my dad read this, he sent me this text:
"I hope you know second semester isn't paid yet"
I didn't have to take this post down because the next text he sent was:
"I liked it. you are still in my will. love, dad"