Texting Without Punctuation

When last we met I was annoyed. Hasn't changed. I decided to take myself away yesterday for a fun filled afternoon ....... buying the necessities for home and store.

The trip to Walmart and the Dollar Tree was uneventful. Well, except for me being annoyed at the way people park and the fact that no one seems to know what a cross walk or stop sign is. We will refer to these transgressions as minor annoyances.

Upon my return I was happy to see that the platform for the toddler slide was completed, although a little taller that I thought it should be. I just need to develop my color scheme and start painting. The slide is green, so the platform will be red and I am thinking that the rails might have to be purple and yellow.

The other thing he did in my absence was check in two early arrivals for the weekend and take a reservation for another. My "seating chart" was right there on my desk, easy to see and easy to read, along with a list of all the reservations for the weekend. "Where did you put them?" I asked.

He put them in sites that were clearly marked RESERVED. "Well, where was I supposed to put them, they needed 50 amp and they said they had reservations." says He Who is clearly not a millionaire. "Oh, I don't know, I would not have put them in sites already reserved. Do you see them on the reservation list?" I answer. He seems annoyed that I am annoyed and escapes to go split wood before I can complain about having to relocate the campers who bothered to make reservations to accommodate the campers who decided to just show up.

I know what happened. I remember talking to the man inquiring about the availability, because he wanted 2 and 4. Those sites were available when he asked, but he told me he wasn't sure and would call me back with a credit card number to hold the sites, should they decide to come. He never called back. Just because you call and talk to me about a "maybe" camping trip does not a reservation make.

I text He Who to tell him the rest of the story and that is when I see the reservation he has scribbled on a mailing label and taped to the desk (as opposed to writing it on the reservation sheet). This for a 50 amp pull-through. Now that I have shifted my other 50 amp reservations around, I have no more 50 amp sites left, much less a pull-through. AND ....... looking at the reservation sheet would have made this known to the one scribbling on the mailing label and leaving the problem for his wife to solve.

She did solve the problem by sending He Who wires things out to pull some power from where ever he can to accomplish another 50 amp site. You see, I have no problem telling someone checking in that they did not actually reserve a site unless they secured it with a deposit or credit card number. I recall telling the man on the day we had the conversation that I could not guarantee the sites he wanted unless he did make a reservation.

But, what does all that have to do with punctuation and texting? Nothing, really. It is Friday in a campground and folks are checking in. When I text "Is site 5 open" and get the reply "no car there", things can easily be misinterpreted. I know I left the "?" off my inquiry, but you still get the meaning. "no car there", however was ambiguous. I took it to mean that the site was clear, no car was parked there. So I assigned the site to the camper checking in. Then I started second guessing myself and texted back, asking for clarification. What he meant was "no, car there". Just needed that comma. Just one more jab of the thumb to make himself clearly understood.