In this age of social media and poor penmanship, I have a confession to make. So, I determined that I would make this confession with this blog post. Some of you won’t believe it. Some of you will just shake your head and walk away. There have been times that I’ve warned people that I’m not perfect, and someday — eventually — I’ll disappoint them. Today could be that day.
You see, I need to let you know that I have had face-to-face communications with, well, another person. This was something people have called a “conversation” and this was, well, face-to-face. I didn’t use text messaging, e-mail, Facebook messenger, twitter (I don’t tweet, but my knees have been making a funny noise lately), snap-chat, up-chuck, or any of those other ways people mediate socially.
Now, what usually follows such a confession may be questions like, “Why? Why? Why would you do this?” Well, it just happened. Actually, it has happened a lot. My wife and I were in Kansas City and we took our niece and nephew out to dinner and, well, it happened there. What’s more, we made eye contact.
Lately, I’ve engaged in face-to-face conversation with total strangers saying things like, “Welcome to our Church. Isn’t it beautiful outside?” I’ve even driven up to someone and rolled down my window and said, you know, silly stuff like, “Could I have a chocolate frosty?” But, I digress.
If I was still on active duty, there might have been a special prosecutor brought in to ask me stuff like, “Colonel, do you realize how much weight you’re gaining? So, why a frosty? Huh? Huh?” No doubt Rachel Maddow would have had my tongue-wagging proclivities for lunch on her program or something. Good thing I’m retired because I don’t think I could take all of that media attention.
I’m kind of nervous to mention this, but there are others out there like me. You know, there are people who have good penmanship and don’t mind communicating in real time through the medium called “air.” Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind social media. I mean, I have a blog for crying out loud.
But I was trying out my daughter’s Spanish translator app the other day and when I asked it to translate “How much does this cost,” it came back with the Spanish for “Your hippo is red.” Sorry, I think I’ll speak in my own Spanish. Yo no hablo Español mucho, pero suficiente para ser peligroso (which of course means, “I don’t speak Spanish very much, but just enough to be dangerous”).
It seems to me that if all that separates us is different languages, then we ought to be filling out the rosters of every foreign language class at every college and university everywhere. But, be careful. There, they speak face-to-face as well. Try it. And, who knows? There are side effects: stuff like your penmanship might improve as well. But, that’s the subject of another blog post.
DISCLAIMER: The part about my daughter’s Spanish translator app is not true. But, I really did have a face-to-face conversation with her.
Gracias, y Dios lo bendiga.