My cousin and I were IM’ing about an upcoming family reunion. I want to find an online calendar, list of activities, “sign up” sheets all in one place.

But — and I know you’ll find this hard to believe — with all the extraneous emails flying around it’s been a little difficult to figure out who really wants to do what when.

  • Let’s do a dunk tank
  • I have always had a huge desire to be involved in a pie throwing fight – anyone else game? Or am I alone in having this dream?
  • Cricket…. Who plays cricket? Well, besides the English and other pretentious people.
  • I think we should have an evening at the reunion devoted to creepy “Big Brother” stories from Uncle X and Carl

40+ emails and counting, and that doesn’t include the side conversations about secret meetings with the FBI; Should we call the loony bin for Claire; reserving a wing at the Betty Ford Center, etc.

Yet somehow we haven’t made any decisions. Thus the idea for a website and IM’ing with my cousin.

ANYway, my cousin is in the Boston area, and we were IM’ing when he said his son (whom I haven’t met yet) wanted to say “hi” to me. I thought maybe my cousin would type whatever my cousin-ette was saying. Nope.

Here’s an excerpt, best as I can recall. You’ll see that accuracy isn’t so important.

Me: I can’t wait to meet you! Response: ggggg

Me: Do you like baseball like your daddy does? Response: nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnrtfd QQQ

<Cousin jumps in: He likes basketball.>

Me: I have a park near my house, so when you come here we can go play basketball at the park. Response: PPp mdnnnnn dllllllllllllll

Cousin: Now he wants to say ‘hi.’ What’s your number?

So they called and the cousin-ette and I “talked” for a few, with Dad in the background to prompt him: “Marie/y has a doggie. What does a doggie say?” etc.

When we hung up and I closed out my IM session I realized how similar the IM conversation was to some I’ve had at work.

If he could do application development* we could probably find a place for my 2-year old cousin-ette at The Everywhere Place.


*and learn the answer to “What does a data architect say?”

–>Sarah (and maybe Omar): IM=Instant Messaging