I sent my first text messages this week. I know; you’re shocked. I’m one of the last people mobile phone owners in the world to learn how to text. (Not that I’ve actually learned anything – it was more by chance than design.)

I have a little, pink (of course) Nokia that I rarely use. I keep it in my bag in case I’m out on my own and the car breaks down, or I get kidnapped and shoved into a remote cabin in the woods, or I get lost. Some time ago, I was driving home late at night when my usual route was blocked off for road works. I followed the detour signs very carefully and only once led astray the trail of cars behind me. I drove into a cul-de-sac and it was very embarrassing driving back past all the people who had the mistaken idea that I knew what I was doing. When the signs ran out I ended up on a very busy road, with nary a road sign in sight, so I found a little set of shops, pulled in and phoned the Old Boy. “Tell me where I am!” Clever chap that he is, he figured it out and I got home safely, only an hour later than usual.

I’ve often watched young people doing the two thumb fandango on their phones, and I’ve sighed with envy. How do they do it…and so fast? I tried to send my son a text a couple of years ago, for his birthday. I wanted to send, “Happy birthday”. The screen said “thirpy turdsdww”. I didn’t hit Send.

So…the other night we had the grand-munchkins sleeping at our place while daughter and #1 s-i-l were out. The kids, the Old Boy and the Wonder Dog were all asleep and I was sitting up waiting…waiting… I had my mobile at hand, as instructed. Finally it beeped and I clicked on it to answer and discovered – duh duh daaaaah – daughter had sent a text message. I needed to reply. It can’t be that hard, I thought. Where’s the Like button?

After scrolling through the menu and discovering there were things in my phone I had no idea existed, I found where I could send a reply. I thought, I’ll keep it simple. OK should be easy. First attempt at getting an O produced: wxy…then mno…then fdt…then styrhyahyrhygy… Flipping heck! I kept hitting buttons and then C for clear and eventually, I still don’t know how, I got an O. TA DA! A similar, exhausting process got me a K and I hit Send before something awful happened. I DID IT!!! I just don’t know how.

The next day the Old Boy and I were on our way to meet the daughter at s-i-l’s place of work (a bakery) for coffee. Again she sent a text to ask how long we’d be. (In the old days we’d just wait until people turned up.) This time the message was sent to the Old Boy’s phone and it has a keypad. Oh good, I thought, this’ll be easy. Wrong! It seems my fingers are several sizes bigger than the keys on the phone. It took me 10 tries to get a simple F (for the word five). By the time I managed to get something legible on the screen I had to change it from five to four minutes. It was actually less time than that, but I had an F and I wasn’t going to start again.

In the time it took me to peck out a message, we could have had a lovely chat and be on our way without the surge of irritability.  What happened to waiting? What happened to talking to people? Why do people want to know everything, every minute of the day?  OH HELL! It’s official: I’ve turned into a Grumpy Old Woman.

Stupid phones.

PS: I hope no one thinks I’m criticising my daughter, because I’m not.