Tickling Texts

On Tuesday morning I woke up to something of a surprising email. I get quite a handful of emails to the Stranger account. Most of them are from you people telling me how good my hair looks and yelling at me for all the ways my recipes suck and asking if Skylar is single and stuff. 

But this one caught my eye, because, well. Just read it.

Texts With Zealous

A wrong-number text handled the right way by Stranger Connor:

Facetime with Rebecca

Eli: Becky, I need your help.

Rebecca: I AM SO GOOD AT HELPING! 

Eli: I know. That's why I called you. What the hell are you eating right now? It looks like Elmer's Glue. 

Rebecca: [Takes a large bite] it's a special kind of yogurt. It's VERY healthy.

Eli: When was the last time you ate something that tasted like food?

Rebecca: August 21, 2004.

Eli: I'm impressed with your specificity but I also feel the need to point out to you that you accepted the premise of my question.

Rebecca: It's easier than arguing with you.

An "Overnight" Guest

Sometime Last Week

Jolyn: I need to be out of my place soon. Can I come stay with you for one night while I'm in transition?

Eli: I feel like this is a trap.

Jolyn: Kthanks! I'll be over in a minute!

A Terrifying Minute Later

Jolyn: Moving all my stuff in is HARD WORK.

Cuddle Texts

One Stranger, Amy V., emailed me on Friday a link to a Craigslist ad by a man looking for a beautiful woman to "cuddle" and "snuggle" and "intimacy." He required that she be between the ages of 18 and 40. His whole ad seemed really creepy. Like, the end-up-on-the-news kind of creepy. So I texted him.

In anticipation to your questions, the picture he tried to send to me did not go through. But, it didn't really matter.

DON'T SEND ME A PICTURE OF THAT EVER PLEASE!!!!

I've been having . . . well . . . issues for the past many weeks. With my body. With the inside of my body.

So, naturally, I decided to share this with anyone who would listen. Also, naturally, Bob and Cathie and Daniel were the only people who showed any interest.

Bob and Cathie typically start sending me an infinite amount of articles about how whatever ailment I've described to them most definitely means that I'm dehydrated and will die by the end of the week. Daniel typically asks me fifty or so intrusive questions and then changes the subject. Then I ask him why he asked all of those questions if he wasn't going to offer some kind of advice or diagnosis. And he usually just says some variation of, "Oh, I was just curious."

Leading up to Mexico, I decided to text him and give him a warning.

Daniel and Eli Text about the Super Bowl

*Note: The Dillon Panthers reference is from Friday Night Lights. The greatest television program of all time.

My Phone is Vulgar

I have a new "what the kids are doing" to tell you about. There's this thing that some phones can do that I'm pretty sure is powered by the devil himself. I don't even know if it has a name. But basically the way it works is you push this button on your phone and then talk and the phone types what you said. It's lazy texting. But I think every time you use it you sell a piece of your soul.

I have sold a lot of my soul because I use it a LOT. And it's surprisingly usually pretty accurate. I can speak quickly, quietly, slowly, with a slur, in an accent, meow, etc. and it almost always types out exactly what I've said.

Once you finish speaking you have to hit the button again to let it know you're done. Then it thinks for a few seconds and then presents all the text. Sometimes it thinks for a while before doing anything. This doesn't bother me because I just think I probably caught it at a bad time. Like, maybe it was in the middle of something really important like T.V.

Cat Texts with Jolyn Metro

Skin Cancer

On Saturday I called Bob and Cathie, who always seem to answer every phone call together and on speaker phone.

Cathie: Hello, so--

Eli: I HAVE CANCER!

Cathie: I'm sorry. You have the wrong number.

Eli: MOM! THIS IS SERIOUS! SKIN CANCER! I HAVE IT! I'M SO YOUNG!

Bob: Where is your "skin cancer?"

Eli: First of all, father, I can tell you used finger quotes when you said "skin cancer" and I very much resent that.

Cathie: It's not that we don't care about you. It's that we don't trust you.

Text Conversations to Remember

I was recently looking through my phone and I remembered that I had saved some of my favorite text conversations over the last couple of years with the intention of eventually sharing them with you. Here are some of them:

*****

[Coordinating for a blind date]

Eli: Hey, just to confirm, I'll pick you up at 7:00 tonight. Right?

Her: Sounds good!

Eli: Great! Touch you soon!

Autocorrect Problems

One of the most frustrating things about making a short trip to the U.S. is my lack of cell phone. I have my old U.S. phone with me, which I'm able to use for Interneting whenever I'm near what the kids call "the wifi." But I still can't call anyone. So I have been using the phone to contact people through Facebook chat extensively. This, in addition to being severely out of autocorrect and text predictor practice, since my Palau phone is a 2001 Nokia with T9 texting, has caused problems.

I'm very good at T9 texting again, by the way. You guys are all going to come running to me when your smart phones give out and the world has to resort back to T9 texting and I'm the only one who can remember how to do it.

Anyway, I give you a small sampling of my more embarrassing mistakes over the last week. Most of my autocorrect and text predictor problems happen with Daniel because I don't care to proof-read what I'm writing to him as much as I do with other people.

Amazing Phrases

One Stranger, Sammy, recently sent me the content of a text exchange she had with a friend, which was spurred by her use of "twice up the barrel, once down the side." This is a nice demonstration of the power of such a phrase.

5:44pm, Mar 19 - Maude: I see. Kind of like, twice up the barrel, once down the side.

 

5:45pm, Mar 19 - Charles Robicheaux, III: Go on...

 

5:47pm, Mar 19 - Maude: Well, it's similar to over the tally and passed the shoot. You know?

 

5:47pm, Mar 19 - Charles Robicheaux, III: You know I don't.

 

5:48pm, Mar 19 - Maude: Okay, so it's out through the window and shut the door.

 

5:49pm, Mar 19 - Maude: But more specific.

 

5:49pm, Mar 19 - Charles Robicheaux, III: You're making this up as you go along, aren't you?

German Couchsurfers

I get couchsurfer requests relatively often in Palau. I have an account on couchsurfing.org, which is a site that exists so backpackers can find like-minded people in the cities they will be visiting and meet up with them or stay at their place for free. Sometimes I refer to couchsurfing as "licesharing" because that name occasionally feels more accurate. 

There are a wide range of views on what the purpose of the site is. The most snobbish turn their noses up at anyone who doesn't consider couchsurfing a "lifestyle."

But I'm just going to tell it like it is: couchsurfing is a way to get free boarding. Yes you meet a lot of really great people along the way. But you also increase your chances of being slaughtered in your sleep or getting human trafficked. And all in all, most people wouldn't do it if they weren't trying to save a buck on their travels.

FAQs

Good morning, dear strangers. A while back I decided it was time to stick an FAQs section on Stranger. So I'm finally doing that. You can find the tab above. I know. It's like I'm trying to set a world record on having the most tabs possible. I have also included the FAQs in this post, for the truly lazy. I receive quite a few emails and comments on blog posts (which I love reading) and many of them ask a lot of the same questions. Since I don't want you to spend all your time asking these kinds of things and not have enough time to write about your Queen of Colors sighting, I post the answers conveniently for you here.

Q: What the crap did I just read?

A: I started this blog in 2007 on a whim. I gave the title no thought, and probably would pick a different one if I could go back. Before I started blogging, I was writing about the strange experiences I was having and emailing them to members of my family almost daily. Then I heard about blogging (I'm always about 10 years behind on all things) and it seemed like a more practical way to share stories and archive them than through the hotmail account I had created when I was 16. So one Saturday morning I up and created this blog and it has largely remained what it was in the very beginning: an exaggerated account of my daily life. The good, the bad, and the Queen of Colors. Only, hopefully, now the spelling and grammar is a little better.

Snuggie Texts, One Year Later

One year ago today I posted Snuggie Texts.

I cannot believe it has already been a year. You people are getting old.

Over the past year, many of you have asked a lot of questions about that experience. How it happened. Who Jane is. What happened to her after Snuggie Texts. Etc.

I have answered so few of your questions and, frankly, never thought I would answer them. This was partly because of laziness but also, I was worried that if I talked too much about it, it might ruin the humor for some of you. Some friends who knew more about the story than I shared here were sure this wouldn't happen and encouraged me to appease the strangers of the world by discussing the experience a little more.

And what better way to do that than on the anniversary of Snuggie Texts? So, here it is.

Soul Sister Texts

Ever get a text from someone who has accidentally replied all to a mass text sent to you by a friend? My friend Mallory got one several months ago after a friend of hers sent out a mass text announcing her engagement. Mallory got creative and the following conversation ensued:

Dec 26:


Unknown 9:16: Congrats!!!!!!!!!! So happy for you guys.

Mal 9:18: Thanks. We weren't sure anybody knew yet.

Unknown 9:18: Yay I am so happy for you! Been Facebook stalking you all Christmas waiting for that!

Mal 9:21: Well it cost a bit more than expected, but I think the result is what we were looking for. Sure surprised mom though.

Kitty Texts

My sister Krisanda received a strange text from an unknown number over the weekend. Never one to pass up on a good opportunity to weird others out, she responded. Below is her funny exchange. Oh Krisanda. Since the time you created The First Eye, you haven't changed one bit. Thanks for keeping me entertained for so many years.

Text exchange below: