T9

About six times in the last week someone has said that I just need to use my phone in T9. It's one of those obvious statements, on the same level as "You just make a left turn at the road where Murphy's dog got killed six years ago." Some of us didn't even know Murphy had a dog.

Any how, I've noticed that the people who said this T9 gibberish were all (a) under 20 years old and (b) had cell phones implanted in their faces. A mere half hour of messing around (my mind is bit burned out from grading) reveals that T9 is a way to get a cell phone to text ordinary things that people always say. It takes a good deal of getting used to. After a quarter of an hour, I could get it to say, "Meeting is done. I'll be home at o." On the win side, I even got the apostrophe—no mean trick. It's like making a souffle work. On the lose side, it says "I'll be home at o" because there's no obvious way to get a number. I wanted a 6. I tried to say "I'll get pizza at Claire's" (a local pizza shop). That won't work. It's got to be Blaire's. Yes, I know I could find the "mode" key, scroll down through the options to get a numbers option, click that, then put in the 6, then change the mode again. That sure is a lot of trouble.

One positive thing, though, is that T9 doesn't know IM abbreviations. I tried "I luv u 2." I got "I juv t a," which isn't much by way of affection or communication.

People laugh at the way I use my cell phone. Jared's has 62 buttons. Mine has 19, including one or two that I've never used. When mine rings, I open it and talk. When Jared's rings, opening it screws things up; you're supposed to keep it closed and find the right button to push. I open my phone, push a two-key speed-dial combination and talk to people. It takes less than ten seconds to do. Just starting a text message to someone on my list (even before all the T9 confusion begins) requires thirteen keystrokes (including a couple that are anything but obvious). I don't have the nerve to try text-messaging someone from just a phone number.

Maybe I'm showing my age. To the kids, this is as obvious as a double-clutching downshift as you enter a spiraled off-camber mountain curve (remember that little counter-flick of the steering wheel to flip the rear end out). Something everyone was born knowing how to do.