The hazards of technological progress

My blog has for a little while now been somewhat of a photo blog. No harm in that, but the reason for me starting the blog was that I love to write. I very much enjoy to put my thoughts and doings into words, to pick up and learn new phrases and words, and use them to make my language more colourful.

Now, I'll tell you a story. It happened to me not so long ago. I wish I could say it happened to a friend, but it would be all to clear throughout the story that I am talking about myself, so I won't lie. And it's a funny story, so I don't mind so much that I was the center of all happenings. Center, and cause =).

It was the final day of our trip to Australia, and we were - very much delayed - slowly heading back to Sweden. I have a pre-paid top-up card for my mobile phone, and it would be rediculously expensive to use it from abroad, so I chose to leave it at home. Joding, who has a cheaper deal for his phone, brought his in case we needed it in some sort of emergency. It was, however rather cheap to send text messages, so I did this once in a while to people back home. People to whom I knew the phone numbers by heart, that is. My dear friend Sofie's phone number, is one of the few I keep in stored in my head. So she got a few 144-character-reports of our adventures Down Under.

Upon returning to Sweden she had sent me a text message when I started Joding's phone after landing in London. She asked where we were, and that she had heard from my mum that we were delayed, and when we were expected to arrive (we had made previous plans to meet up the evening of our return). I wrote back something like (but in Swedish) "we are in London, expect to leave around 2.15 pm, and return to our apartment around 7.30. call you later. miss you. hugs.", found "Sofie" in the phone book, and sent the message.

Now, to the story goes that Sofie can sometimes (in a cute way) be a bit absent-minded.

I got a reply to my text a few minutes later: "I think you sent this message to the wrong person. All well? /Sofie".

I shook my head, and sent back: "NO, I sent it to the right person. You asked how we were doing, and I replied in a detailed fashion. Will call you later. Hugs.".

She again replied: "What? I don't understand. We haven't spoken for quite some time now. /Sofie"

I shook my head, and thought "some time", it was like 24 hours since we spoke last, what's up with her, did she perhaps forget that she sent me that text asking how we were doing. Perhaps she had sent that just as we were leaving Singapore, and that were quite a few hours ago. That could be time enough to forget she wrote the message. I decided that the matter could not be solved over text-messaging. There is only so much you can explain in 144 characters, right?

When we had landed in Copenhagen, and had crossed the bridge back to Sweden, I called Sofie to make plans for the evening. After a few customary lines, like asking how she was doing etc., I confronted her on the text confusion. She still seemed confused, denying the messaging having taken place, and I decided to drop it until we met in person. Later that evening she came over. Me and Joding were unpacking a bit, and fixing some food, and I again asked her about the messaging, trying to explain that she had asked me how we were doing, and that I then had replied to that, and she had just seemed so confused about it, and I couldn't understand why.

She kept on saying "but I haven't texted you today".

Then it all came to place.

How I had been on Joding's phone while texting, and sent my descriptive text-messages about our travel progress to Sofie. To Sofie in Joding's phone book. Which isn't the number to my friend Sofie, but to Joding's ex-girlfriend Sofie.

All came back to me, how I had insisted that she was the right person receiving my message, all the hugs and "I'll call you later"-s. This I realised with Joding and Sofie (my friend Sofie, that is) present. They laughed quite a bit at me. And so did I.

In my defence I was jet-lagged and tired. But one would still think I would have caught on when some of the messages from Sofie in the list was from "Sofie" (i.e. Joding's Sofie) and some from Sofie's (i.e. my Sofie's) phone number. Ah well, one can't be perfect always.