My Mum recently bought a new phone. She had to do this, because she ruined the previous one by dropping it into a bowl of washing up water. Worst multitasker ever. I did suggest putting it in a jar of rice to dry out – and then had to check she hadn’t used cooked rice by accident – but it was
beyond saving.
The shiny new version is a Nokia Lumia. I’m pretty certain that the deciding factor in my parents choosing this phone was that it came with a Kindle Fire for free. As well as having a touchscreen that she can’t operate and a new phone number that she can’t remember, it comes with text message emojis. Now, I have to confess that I was hoping Mum would never find them. I knew that if she did I’d have a texting battle on my hands.
I got my first inkling that there was something afoot when she ended a text message with a Santa face. Good grief, she knows! I sent some faces and symbols back to see if she could see them.The barrage of emojis I was confronted with in reply confirmed that she could. In an attempt to discourage her, I may have sent several lines of smiling poop. There may have in fact been 20+ smiling poop in a row. Her response: “was that what I thought it was?” followed by a phone and some chicken drumsticks. Nope, no idea either.
- Since discovering her icon stash, Mum has sent me all of the following: a Beefeater. Rainbow hearts. Sparkly hearts. Fries. Watermelon. Sushi. A scared face. A flamenco dancer. Bread. Cocktails. Cutlery. The Japanese symbols for ‘nothing’, ‘empty’, ‘finger’, and ‘forbidden’. Man in a turban. A baby.
There doesn’t seem to be much of a running theme here, except that she’ll send up to 30 at a time. I’ve tried sending her rows of clocks and houses to see if she’ll pick just one type of emoji and stick with it. Nope, there’s a cat, a glass of wine and a ‘no entry’ symbol.
In a bid to finally win the war and stop this emoji madness once and for all, I did something I never thought would be necessary. I deployed a Moai. There was blissful silence for around 4 hours. When I called her to gloat about my victory, she told me she doesn’t know what a Moai is. Damn. She then sent me a little box that says ‘cool’. So I guess the fight’s still on.
I’m not sure where we’ll go from here. I’m definitely not going to show her how to make a whale in her message box.
