Getting the Point!!!

It's not what you say, it's how you say it. Which is why text messages can be so confusing.

Months ago, my younger daughter told me all my texts seemed angry. I was constantly making her feel bad. Horrified -- lord knows the last thing I want is for her to feel bad while she's so busy making me feel like shit -- I scrolled through, looking for evidence. "I'll see you at 6." "I got us pizza for dinner." "Do you need anything from Walgreens?" No name calling, not a cuss word in the entire message stream. What was she talking about?

I texted her back. (What? Did you think she had brought this up in an actual conversation?) "I am not angry. I am never angry." I thought that pretty much covered it. Bored maybe. But I can't imagine I would ever seem angry about, say, having pizza for dinner at six after a quick Walgreens run.

"There you go again!" was her response. "Why are you mad at me?"

I was baffled. "I am not mad at you." Or, more accurately, angry, but I thought correcting her and pointing out the incorrect use of "mad," which in my mind conjures up images of rabid, salivating dogs, not rational people expressing displeasure, might add fuel to the fire.

"You don't use exclamation points! You use periods!"

Ahhh. So "I'll see you at 6." is angry. "I'll see you at 6!" is not angry. I get it. "Ill see you at 6!!!!!!!" is euphoric. I communicated my comprehension immediately. "Oh!!!!!!!!" "I'm sorry!!!!!!!!" "Love you!!!!!!" I was hoping I had wriggled my way out of that one relatively unscathed.

Over the course of the last few months, I have done my best to overcome the laziness that impels me to just hit the space button twice for a neat little period and expend the extra energy it takes to punctuate even the blandest of remarks with an exclamation point. "Almost there!" "In the bathroom!" "Manny has fleas!" In writing, I sound, if not happy, at least deranged.

Frankly, I've noticed there are far more sinister ways to make the recipient of a text feel like shit than by merely choosing unemphatic punctuation. "Yep" and "nope" are my two favorites. Just yesterday, I received responses from three different people containing one of those words (two of the texters once resided in my womb, the other simply put them there). I have used "yep" and "nope" as weapons myself; I know full well the impact of the subliminal messages those simple words are intended to transmit. Leave me alone. Screw you. You're an idiot. I hate your fucking guts. And yes, if you add an exclamation point, all of that goes away. "Yep!" means yee ha, woo hoo, I'm so excited I could spit! "Nope!" means thank goodness, what a relief, let's party!

I haven't confronted any of them, but all those curt "yep" and "nope" texts have put me in an extremely bad mood, which is not a good thing since I have to put on a happy face tonight at a wedding. In fact, I just filled out the card: Dear Shiny Young Couple. Yep. Two out of three do not make it. Nope. Good luck. I can't put my finger on it; something seems off, maybe even a little angry. Sure is honest, though, and I'm big on honesty.

The truth is weddings just make me ornery. It's not that the sight of other folks' happiness makes me angry. Wait. Of course it does. It makes me downright fucking miserable. But I'm going to take the lessons I've learned about the nuances of texting and put them to good use in the card I give to the woefully misguided young couple. I'm tossing the first, and replacing it with something that sounds suitably happy and the opposite of angry.

"Yep!!! Two out of three!!!"