Please note: there is some unintended salty language in this post! :-)
Have you ever read through those sites that post screenshots of text auto-correct goofs? I’ve laughed myself almost to the point of hysteria reading through those. I had also prided myself in knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that “could never happen to me!”
Last week I drove to El Paso, Texas. Throughout the trip from Wisconsin I was often in contact with my friend, Lisa, in El Paso. Before I left WI I had finally purchased a bluetooth headset to stay in communication while on the road. This thing works great! I can stay in contact AND keep my hands on the wheel! On Thursday I was driving west through Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle. I was headed toward Roswell, NM to visit my friend, Carolyn. It had been cloudy and raining through most of the day, but Carolyn said it was clearing up near them and I was looking forward to seeing sunshine. As I got closer to NM I could see near the horizon that the skies were indeed clearing.
I sent Lisa a message exclaiming about the clearing weather ahead. I told the phone to ‘send’ and didn’t check to make sure it correctly typed what I had said. Yep... you guessed it... horrible auto-correct goof!!
What I had said into my headset was, “The break in the clouds ahead is astounding!”
OF COURSE... right after I sent the “I’m dyin” I lost ALL phone signal. You can see the ‘churning wheels of death’ on the 2 texts that would have explained what I meant.
Aaaaaand, not being able to finish a conversation that ended with, “Noooooooo” and “I’m dyin”, could be a bit disturbing on both ends. But it could be quite frightening on the receiving end!
Lisa was worried that something had happened to me... that maybe I was laying by the side of the highway, literally, dying. I was trying to call her because I was mortified at what had come out of my phone!!!
For about 30 minutes I had absolutely NO SIGNAL! She was worried... and I was having a hard time driving because I was laughing so hard!! And we could not communicate.
This was my view ahead. Now, wouldn’t you call that ASTOUNDING?!!
SO there ya have it. Auto-correct mistakes can happen to anyone... if you don’t proof-read. Lesson learned... I hope!
