Luv in txt 4m.

My father was talking to my grandmother recently, and she was relaying a story form her childhood... a story my father had never heard. He said "Mom, you need to be writing these stories down so we have them forever."

"I can't," she said, "My typewriter broke in 1994."

Headdesk.

So, being the man my father is he bought his mother a typewriter... a typewriter that scares her because of "all its computer parts." It has an LCD screen that says if the caps lock is on. Wow.

Anyway, that isn't really the point of this post. The point is that when I sat down at this machine and stamped out a letter to my dad, so to demonstrate to my octogenarian grand-maternal relative that it was an easy device to use, I realized that there might not ever be another really good letter written.

It used to be that letter writing was one of the most romantic ways to express your feelings for someone. But today we have email, facebook, instant messenger, texting and twitter. My friend's dog recently passed away. This was a dog that I knew well, and loved as if he was my own pet. I found out hours after it happened because his sisters had messages about Duke on Facebook. That is lame. I found out the same way that one of my best friends in the world was engaged an hour before she called to tell me. SUPER lame.

Old people have great stories about writing letters to each other across the country, and getting letters from boyfriends in France during the war. What are we going to tell our grandchildren about how we met our spouses?

"Oh, your grandfather was so sweet. He used to post the funniest links on my wall, and always added an extra 'LOL' to let me know he thought it was funny, and that I should enjoy it. He also used to make me text him when i got home safe from his place. I text 'made it home. thnx 4 dinner!' and he'd respond with a heart-skipping 'g'nigt cutie. Colon, dash, closed parenthesis' and I'd send a flirtatious 'colon, dash, capitol P' with a 'u' and an 'r' and a 'g-r-8'. I wish i had saved those texts, but alas they are lost to the ether. Such is romance."

Headdesk.