One of the best things to happen to my family’s communication loop is the iPhone. Seriously. It took things to a whole new level.  If you’ve read my blog, you know about some of my crazy family antics. If you haven’t…looks like you have some catching up to do.

My family is in constant contact. It’s like the most extensive, yet inaccurate phone tree ever.  There are literally times where I tell my mother something awesome or exciting or that I have a headache, and within 2.5 minutes I have an incoming call from Long Island congratulating me or asking how I’m feeling. It’s really unbelievable.  Before the iPhone, we had many a conference calls – partially to lessen the amount of times to repeat information, and partially to eliminate any errors in the relaying of information.  Otherwise, something like this could happen.

Mom to Me: “You’re not gonna believe it! Alexys sprained her ankle during a soccer game and had to be carried off the field.”

Aunt Sharon to Aunt Myra: “Jeff was pissed, he was screaming at the coach and ref for not calling a foul on the other player.”

Aunt Myra to Mom: “They had to hold Karyn back she was so mad!”

Mom to Me: “This is getting ugly. I think they might switch teams they are so pissed”

Me finally calling Karyn: “What the fuck happened? Is Alex ok? She sprained her ankle at soccer today?”

Karyn to me: ” What are you talking about? That was last week and it was a player from another team! We didn’t even have soccer today. ”

See how quickly things can go awry?  My mom didn’t earn the family nickname “Mouth of the South” for nothing.

The iPhone however has removed some of the gross and fabricated conversation and speculation, while keeping the hilarity in tact.  And all because of group texting.  This is a regular occurrence, but I felt compelled to share some recent instances because of some doozies over the past week.

There’s definitely a generational learning curve when it comes to operating an iAnything for those baby boomers and older.  They can’t help it. I mean, their first cell phones were the phones that actually had cords and lived in the car and cost $50/min to use, followed by the brick phones with the giant antennae. So it’s no wonder my mother still has a few snafus with her camera phone.  You may think her grandaughter wins for most pics in her camera roll. Sorry to disappoint you, but the winners are actually the accidental ceiling and floor candids. It’s egregious.

Floor – looks like a lovely polished concrete

car floor

Her own lap, in the car

ceiling

ceiling shot

 

The same issues apply to social media tools like Facebook by the way.  My family is all on The Book and my mother LOVES it.  But it did take some ramp up time to get her situated and to understand that there was more functionality than just poking me every couple of hours.  She’s pretty good, but still has her struggles. The other day, I was trying to get her to participate in a contest to win free cookies for mother’s day. All she had to do was like the cookie company’s page, post a pic of my gram and tag me.  As easy as this may seem for our generation, it’s comparable to quantum physics to her and the sisters.  This was our brief convo via text. She’s in gray and I’m blue.



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Pretty good for an old broad? Careful patting yourself on the back. I mean. I had to walk you through it pretty extensively, but sure.

When other family members get involved, you never know where the conversation is going to go. Here’s a recent group text started by my cousin Jonathan including his brothers, me and his mom. I’m in blue. Cousins in gray.

 

Like MacGyver style shit

Like MacGyver style shit

My mom really thought that was a proper use of the word "vexing" instead of a typo and was congratulating me (and her for paying for SAT classes)

My mom really thought that was a proper use of the word “vexing” instead of a typo and was congratulating me (and her for paying for SAT classes)

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Solid ending – well-played.

And then, there was this awesomesauce that literally had me laughing so hard I was crying.  Again, this was started by Jonathan but also included my mom, his wife Mia and his mom/my aunt.

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And as you can see, we are all very supportive :)

So, that’s how the iPhone group texting has enlightened my family.  Just the other day, my mom asked me if she should be on “The Twitter and The Instagram” because “maybe she wants to Twit”. As her personal IT consultant I had a small internal panic attack. Let’s just stick with Facebook for a while mom.  Baby steps.