This happens occasionally and I find it weird and amusing and sorta unintentionally voyeuristic, cause I know the text wasn't meant for me yet, there it is on my phone's little screen, all high-context-y communication and private and subtle and assuming that the eyes taking in all the electronic Prince and the Revolution-type shorthand is the right set of eyes, and then I feel a little guilty and a little intrigued and--depending on what was texted--a little titillated and naughty.
Take the text that came chiming in at 1:27 AM this morning, rousing--but not quite waking--me from my sleep, which read (sic): Can you just tell me why it matters babe C.R.E.A.M.
There I was at 6:45 this morning after I'd gotten out of bed, looking like a shorter, pastier version of Don King, pre-coffee, bundled in my robe, squinting through semi-crusted eyes, staring dumbly at the tiny Sanyo phone in my hand and trying to decipher exactly 9 words of backlit text and one cryptic acronym that wasn't even meant for me.
I wondered what mattered? Did they have lousy sex? Did they not? Did they fight? Did he sleep with someone else? Not share a secret? Maybe he winked at another chick? Or lost his job? Or she? Or he couldn't get it up? And what the hell was "C.R.E.A.M.?"
I momentarily worried that my not knowing made me woefully unhip, horribly prudish, ridiculously square or just plain ignorant. I Googled C.R.E.A.M. and came up with the lyrics for a song of the same name by the Wu-Tang Clan: "...a man with a dream with plans to make C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)......"
Ah. C.R.E.A.M. Now I think I get it.
Not sex, money. They were fighting over money.
He's superficial, she wants more (or vice-versa). One of them is a Republican and one of them is a Democrat and perhaps theirs is a doomed, tragic sort of Romeo & Juliet-type love. Maybe one of them is a non-profit earth muffin type, helping homeless animals and starving children, and the other is hungrily climbing the corporate ladder, enjoying bonuses, perks and kickbacks. Maybe.Yeah, that's it. An irreversible clash of ideologies. Obama vs. the MILF.
At least, that's the drama I fabricated for these two fictional characters, based off of 9 words of text and one acronym mistakenly sent to approximately one square inch of the wrong cell phone screen at 1:27 AM this morning.
Babe.
