Pimp my text

I think my cell phone needs a function on it where, sensing a rise in my blood pressure, it puts an automatic 1-hour delay in my reply text-messaging abilities. Seriously. My phone can do fucking everything else—GPS (which I don’t use), Internet (which I use rarely and takes forever), Yellow Pages (which I don’t use), Bluetooth (what the hell is that?), every time zone (which I don’t use), the ability to summon Batman (which I get ready to use every time Daley discusses the Olympics, but have to restrain myself), a thing that parts my hair, bells, whistles, a can-opener, melon-baller, and a steam engine feature, for when my battery is low. Can they not invent something to help me with one of the two functions for which I use my phone?

A 1-hour delay imposed upon my reply texts, wherein I can decide to simply delete my outgoing message altogether. Because when I am excited or bored, I am over-communicative. This leads to me always sending the dreaded final text in a series of texts back and forth. For those of you who don’t text enough to know what I’m talking about, it’s like being the last one to hang up on a phone call. Everyone wants to be the one to do it first, because if you’re never the first to hang up, you’re the loser who generally has nothing better to do. You’re consistently being hung-up with. I need a 1-hour delay to let me think, “Okay. Is this really necessary? Wasn’t everything said already? Is this overkill, and is this even humorous, or am I just running over this joke again and again and again? Joke road kill? Am I appearing too interested? Might I dial it back?”  With the voice in my head getting higher and higher-pitched with every question.

More so than to remedy my over-communication, I need this function to rein in the sarcasm. For the instant quip that sits at the corner of my mouth every time I’m even slightly annoyed. Or at the tips of my fingers, as it were, since this refers to the texting. The biting commentary. The acerbic comeback. Or the super-sneaky, underhanded, passive-aggressive response that is a shiny coin toss between sincerity and straight-out mockery. The stone-cold bitch that usurps the power over my right hand and types out a little “Ha-HA!” on my phone’s keypad, only to regret it 5 minutes after it sends. There is no recall function. There is nothing to save me from my greatest nemesis—myself.

Phone companies—how has no one embraced this yet? I can’t be the only one.