MadMup.com

Twitter saves lives.

So maybe more of you should join up. I worry!

(Thanks, Cousin Laura!)

I’m sure most of you have seen this:

While I was looking for that one, I found this one, the sequel:

I enjoy these for a couple of reasons, but the biggest one being the texting shorthand, this all-encompassing form of communication that all teenagers use all the time. The “big” news networks frequently trot out a list of abbreviations that “all the kids are using,” and I know I’m not the only one that looks at the lists and says, “Nobody in the history of texting and IM has ever used that one!” It’s like the kid they got to give them the inside scoop was playing games on them and just making stuff up.

In 40 years I’ll be like the grandma in that second clip, texting my buddies down the hall at the nursing home instead of taking the trouble to get my walker and risk breaking my hip by going down the hall to actually see them. I text enough that I recently had to up my data plan for my phone, as I was going to go over the 1500 I was allotted monthly. Somewhat tellingly, at the same I was doing that, I also lowered my voice plan, as I wasn’t getting anywhere near the limit on that one. I did, in fact, halve my voice plan, and it’s still more minutes than I’ve been using on average.

It should be noted that I don’t just use texting to avoid talking to people – it’s also a useful tool for scheduling and reminding, and its big brother, multimedia messaging, is a handy way to document events as they happen by letting me send pictures to Flickr, other people, or my email account.

There’s a few reasons I like sending and receiving texts on my cell phone. First, it’s convenient. I pretty much always have my cell phone nearby, whereas I don’t necessarily have a computer or a pen and paper handy. When the thought crosses my mind that I need to do something when I get home, I know from historical events that I will most likely forget it by the time I get home. If I text a reminder from my phone to my email, I’ll remember to do it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten home from being out, saw that I had an email waiting, and said to myself, “I wonder who it’s from?” before opening it to find that I had, indeed, forgotten what it was I needed to do.

Second, it’s unobtrusive. You’ve been in a store, a library, a theater, or maybe even church when someone’s on their cell phone yapping away – we’ve all been there, and most of us have even been the person in question. It happens. Someone conversing via text isn’t forcing you to be a part of their conversations about grocery lists, kids sports schedules, or, worse, medical conditions. Assuming the person has their phone set to silent or vibrate (as opposed to, say, a Murloc), they’re not making any noise at all. And to the receiver, it’s like getting a voicemail without the hassle of having to dial in to hear the message – “Oh, Mark’s going to be late because his cat killed the UPS guy. He says we should start without him.”

Third – and this is what I like most about texting – is that it makes you consider what you’re saying carefully, at least it should. A well-crafted text message needs to consider there’s no room for non-verbals, so it needs to say what it means to say. I actually consider this a plus, by the way, as I think non-verbals sometimes get in the way of what I’m trying to say or understand. Further, text messages are limited. If I go over 160 characters, the message gets split into two messages. I have to choose my words carefully, and there have been many times I’ve edited a message to get it in under 160, turning my Dickensian tomes into Hemingway blurbs. It helps me consider more specific words that do in one what I had done in three or five, and I’m sure there are some of you that wish I’d learn that lesson for blogging, too.

The side effect to all that is that I am thinking about what I’m saying. There’s no “off the cuff” texting: you type what you mean to type (unless you’re using predictive texting and aren’t paying attention to the screen, that is!). For me, that means I’m considering what I’m texting before I text it, something I’m not as good at when I’m talking. I can’t count how many times I’ve typed something out only to erase and edit it before I send it.

Furthermore, texts you get from me are 99% readable English. I don’t use “u” for “you,” “l8r” for “later,” or “(=o=)” for “TIE Fighter.” I capitalize and use punctuation. I may occasionally use a “btw” or an “lol,” but those have almost passed into the vernacular at this point. I’m not the fastest texter, but I hope to be an accurate one. Getting a cell phone with a full QWERTY keypad has helped me a lot in that regard, and in a lot of ways I’m a better text-typer than an actual typer.

I know that texting cannot be a replacement for talking to someone, but it can be a good supplement to the relationship. I receive status updates on my phone throughout the day from Twitter and Facebook, and knowing what my friends are thinking throughout the day when I can’t be with them all the time helps me feel more connected to them.

So please know that if I’m texting you, it’s not me blowing you off, it’s me communicating, just like you might pick up the phone to ask someone how many bags of chips to bring to the party. I’ll still talk to you, and I’ll even meet you for lunch or Starbucks. Just don’t be surprised if I get a few texts while we’re there.

Though it’s a little later in the season than I typically like to go, I made an appointment to get my taxes done yesterday. My taxes are pretty easy to do, but I will admit to some paranoia about audits and prison and governments being mad at me – I don’t have any reason to fear those things, as I’m not trying to rip anyone off, but I think that’s why it’s called “paranoia” and not “groundedinfactoia.”

I’d gone to this place before (okay, fine, it was Jackson Hewitt), but last year I bought TurboTax to try to save some money. It turned out that with the fees to electronically submit my returns, it cost about the same as having them done, so I figured I’d just go back to Jackson Hewitt this year. I called them on Saturday and made an appointment for yesterday.

I got there a little earlier than scheduled and the nice older lady (I’m guessing she was in her early 70s) had me fill out a form. There was a bucket of candy on the counter, so I had a piece of Hershey’s milk chocolate, which I’ve really been enjoying lately, probably as a response to all the bad advice Dove chocolate has given me over the years.

When I’m done filling out the form, the lady takes me back her cubicle amidst a bunch of other cubicles which do nothing to prevent anyone from hearing your conversation, as evidenced by the other tax lady prairie-dogging her head over the wall and jumping into our conversation. It’s a good thing I didn’t have anything embarrassing to declare – “Well, I was in prison for most of last year, do I have to declare the 30 cents a day I earned making license plates?” or “Can I file jointly with all three of my wives? What if they’re each in a different state?” I actually wonder if people get into the tax-preparation business because they like to hear about other people’s money and problems. “You owe… let’s see… 43 million dollars to the government this year. Wow! That’s the most I’ve ever seen! I’m sad for your circumstances, but impressed at the same time!”

This lady took about 8 minutes to do my taxes, which should tell you how easy they are to do. She asked a couple of questions, showed me what my return would be, and then said, “That’ll be $167.”

Um, what?

Granted, I hadn’t asked about price when I made the appointment, as I’d figured it’d be somewhere in the neighborhood of $60-70 like it was the last time I did this. but $167? I figured it must be a $100 charge since I didn’t use them last year. I let her know that this was a surprising figure to me.

“Well, we can hold onto the paperwork until you’re ready to pay for it.”

“Um, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to pay $167 to have my taxes done.”

I apologized somewhere between 7-10 times for having taken up her time, and she said “It’s okay” in a tone that clearly indicated it was not, and then I left.

I got in my car and Twittered that I was going to Best Buy to get a software solution. Literally two seconds after I Twittered that, my friend Brian called and basically said, “Don’t waste your money.” He told me he had a list of 19 different free ways to do my taxes and then said, “And if you have State Farm Insurance, you can do TurboTax Online for free.” As it happens, I do have State Farm, and as it further happens, he was right: you can do TurboTax Online for free if you’re with State Farm, both state and federal.

It took me about 45 minutes to get everything entered and checked, re-checked, and printed, but they’re done and submitted and I already had an email this morning that said my federal return was accepted. Sweet.

Now I wait 9-12 days to get my returns electronically deposited and then blow the money in riotous living, which in this case is defined as “putting some in savings and most on paying bills.” Maybe next year I’ll do something even more riotous, like put a down payment on a house.