Texting, Texting 123
Wednesday - March 24, 2010
| Share
Del.icio.usBecause MidWeek reaches nearly everyone on Oahu and at least half-a-million people read it every week, I figured this would be a good way to let everyone know that I do help out our 12-year-old daughter with her homework. In some instances, however, that might not be a good thing.
My wife thinks I’m conspiring to get out of doing that. She’s the one who usually undertakes the difficult task of assisting our daughter with homework, just as she did with our 20-year-old son when he was that age. I can think of no other stress worse than witnessing that.
Their mother means well, but her expectations are very high. Of course, it paid off with our son as he’s attending a name college and has been on the dean’s list for the last few semesters. So I guess the nightly arguments at the kitchen table will eventually lead to our daughter’s educational success.
Since my wife doesn’t always want to play the “bad guy,” she will assign me studying tasks to perform with our daughter. Although I genuinely try to help her, the last time I helped study for a test she failed it miserably. My wife suspected that I did that on purpose.
That’s because she knows I practice my dad’s theory of getting out of doing stuff. That is, “If you want to get out of doing something, screw it up so badly that you never get asked to do it again.” In an attempt to make up for that, I volunteered to help our daughter prepare a report on “texting.”
I wasn’t sure if there was much published on such a new technology phenomenon but I headed to the local library to find a book or two. It’s been years since I’ve been in a library, but I guess the habit of speaking in whispers has been burned into my brain. I went to the front desk for some help.
I whispered, “Do you have any TEXT books?” She replied, “No, we don’t carry school textbooks.” I quietly rephrased the question, “I meant, books on texting?” She replied, “No we don’t carry school books on testing.”
Frustrated, I did a texting pantomime holding my two hands in front of me and wiggled my thumbs as though texting a message saying in a kind of shouting whisper, “Books on texting?” I don’t know what she thought I was doing because her next answer floored me, “A book on knitting textiles?”
Ron’s WEBSITE of the week http://www.bigshonolulu.org
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS Comments (0) |
Most Recent Comment(s):
