Drexting

A friend challenged me a couple weeks ago not to text and drive. Actually, he didn't challenge me, per se. He just asked me not to. And since he said "please", I decided to try and oblige.

Yes. That means I have been a drexter of days, weeks and months past. But like you, my fellow drexting fiends, I have been guilty of thinking that I was above wrecking or swerving or even touching the yellow or white lines with one hand on the wheel and the other typing out Facebook statuses on my Blackberry.

Yeah. I even Facebooked while driving.

But I've stopped all that. And it's made me think: is my life or the life of someone else really worth a text message? If I crashed and died while texting "see you soon!" or "OMG, you would not believe the day I've had" or "wait till I show you what I bought on sale" - is that something to die for? Hmmmm....

So I texted (while not in a vehicle!) my entire family and challenged them to the same challenge I'm holding myself to. And later when I got home from work, I gave them my reasons. For whatever reason, we tune mom out (who's been nagging us for awhile about this) but we tend to listen better to each other (go figure!) so nearly every day we have a 'drexting' update and we hold each other to our pledge.

Facebook can wait.
If it's something terribly important, call the person.
Or if it's a matter of life and death, pull over and text/email.

For that reason, if you text me and you don't get an immediate reply, it's because I'm driving.

And I don't text and drive. Anymore.