The text messaging part I don't understand

I have a new cell phone. It's not that I needed one. The one I had was working fine. But it was 5 years old and was nothing fancy. It was a phone! I talked on it; I called people; I recharged it.

But newer phones had other functions. They had cameras and Internet access and qwerty keyboards that you could type on with your newborn baby-size fingers. Some played music and displayed photos and gave directions and researched term papers and repaired your car for you while you waited. Maybe that last function hasn't come out yet. But you get the picture: My phone was an antique, in a digital age sort of way, meaning it was not the latest, shiniest, fastest most awesome thing on the market.

I would have been perfectly happy to keep it until the battery quit charging (which is how I managed to get the phone I've got). But my wife wanted more. She wanted to be able to text. She needed that function to communicate with her co-workers, who apparently are a bunch of carpal-tunneled texting fiends. So she got a company phone, one with a qwerty keyboard for better texting. She's happy.

Because her old phone was married to my old phone, sort of like the two of us are married and have been for a long time, especially in digital years, for which every three years is a lifetime, I had to do something about her old phone, and that meant I had to do something about my old phone. I had to divorce her old phone from my old phone, the two of which were in a family plan, and before I got through the ordeal, I was afraid I might have to call in a family law practitioner. But after numerous calls to the Wireless Provider, which will remain nameless because this is not that kind of blog, the separation agreement finally went through, and her phone with the old familiar number, which was one of the last things I memorized in this lifetime, disappeared into cyberspace or wherever it is old phone contracts and old phone numbers go. And with a new two-year contract, during which time I cannot do any of the thousands of things I agreed not to do when I signed my name, I got a new phone. It's shinier and swifter-looking than my old phone, but it still does the same things my old phone did, which was make and receive calls. And it also takes pictures, although we have two digital cameras and several old film cameras that do that, but you never know when you'll need to take a picture while you're holding your phone. It does not text. It does not surf the Internet. It does not give directions or search for the nearest pizza place. And it does not play music.

The thing I still don't understand is what's so great about texting. Twice today, my wife got text messages on her new phone. She had to text back a reply. It took a few minutes to scrunch down her fingers to fit that newborn-size keyboard. "Why not just call?" I asked, and she gave me that "you just don't understand anything" look and kept on scrunching her fingers onto that keyboard. I really don't understand it: It's as if you're holding a telephone in your hand and, instead of making a call, you say, "I think I'll send a telegram instead!" Those telegrams sure must impress a lot of people who are paying extra each month for unlimited text messaging so that, even if they lose their ability to speak, their nimble little fingers will be in great shape.

And wouldn't Samuel F.B. Morse be pleased to know that telegrams are still being enjoyed in the 21st century. "What God hath wrought!"