txt me

Shortly after I moved to DC I signed up for emergency text message and email alerts. I'm not much for disaster planning, but it seemed like a good idea. And while I've gotten my share of completely useless information (DMV closed early due to excessive heat, gas leak five blocks away has been repaired), it's also proved handy sometimes, as when it tells me when the severe weather warning will be over--i.e., when it will stop pouring so I can go outside.

This service entailed paying for maybe five a la carte text messages per month, which made the useless information ones doubly annoying. Then friends starting texting me, at first just once in awhile if they were running late, then more frequently. Some of them seem to use their phones only secondarily to actually make calls. I gave in a few months ago and sprang for the 50 messages/month bundle, which was lucky because my phone company raised the messaging rates to $.15/each at about the same time.

Then this billing cycle came along. Suddenly no one communicates with me orally at all. And why not? Are we European high school students now? Why spend 10 minutes exchanging six text messages when a 60-second phone conversation would be more efficient (and included in my plan)? Was the demise of the phone call a signal of my generation's increasing alienation from our fellow humans? Or was I just doing more stuff that called for texting? Whatever the reason, I burned through 62 messages in a week. I needed to cut back. But how?

Yesterday morning I awoke to this text from alert DC:

3-Alarm Fire @ 2633 Adams Mill Rd. NW. Parts of Coumbia Rd, Calvert St. & Adams Mill closed nearby.

Interesting? Definitely. Useful? Possibly. But did I need to know this at 6:43 am? No!

Well, resistance was clearly futile. I switched to the 300 message bundle that morning, at the bargain rate of $4.99/month. So go ahead, text me. Maybe next month I'll switch to the unlimited plan.