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Hi, just checking to see if this goes through…We were just rocketed, so I’m lying on the floor killing time by texting.
I don’t get texting. So I’m supposed to want to pay more every month for the ability to take a longer, more frustrating time to communicate with others, on the same device that I use, sometimes by pushing a single button, to talk with someone clearly, quickly, and in real time?
Even worse, as much as I hate texting, whenever I receive a text message, it costs me five cents. That’s why I hate texting even more, and why those who know me never use that form of communication when I’m involved.
For this reason I decided, after reading the message several times, that this was some oblique aspect of one of those interminable Internet e-mail scams, where the Nigerian guy wants to give you $1.5 million of his rich family’s money if you’ll just allow him to use your bank account, credit card, and social security numbers to protect his inheritance.
Then enters Julie My Love.
“Hey, baby. Listen to this crazy text message, ‘Hi, just checking to see if this goes through…We were just rocketed, so I’m lying on the floor killing time by texting.’ What do you think that’s all about?”
“Your sister? In Kabul. In Afghanistan.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll bet you’re right.”
So my sister in Afghanistan is under armed attack right now, sending me a quintessentially ironic text message. What do I do? Well, I’m certainly not going to degrade myself by texting back, so I send her an e-mail (We Funstons are very casual about the various states of our immediate family, because someone’s always dying unexpectedly, so we’ve learned there’s no use in fretting.)
Her response, arriving the next day in an unusually prompt manner, was this:
Yep, that was me…Good to know our services are compatible. Turned out to be a suicide car bomb right outside our compound (about 100 yards away).
You probably saw it on the news. It’s quite an experience to feel the shock waves from something like that. We lost two soldiers and a local staff member. We’ve had incidents nearly everyday for the last week but this was the biggest hit we’ve taken. I won’t (can’t) go into great detail, but things are getting interesting and I’m pretty unimpressed by our security protocols. Oh well. It keeps it interesting.
How’s it going on your end?
Every line tells another more insidious and ghastly tale, and then with a shrug of the shoulders, it becomes the archetypal example of banality. It’s a masterwork of the form, and certainly worthy of induction into an as-yet-to-be-established Museum of E-Mails.
But it’s also very intense. Just to have my sister write to me about these people near her being killed makes their lost lives that much more personal to me. I’ve never taken these wars – these wars – lightly, but it’s just so strange to say, “We’re at wars.”
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