Technology makes life easier (to mess up)

With new technology come new and wonderful ways to make asses of ourselves. Especially if we think we are funny.

A fading friend of mine pretends to buy motorcycles as a method to keep his blood pumping. We drive from Windham to Winterport looking at everything from vintage Triumphs to sparkling new Ducatis – even though he has no intention of ever taking the fearsome beasts onto the highway.

But since I have even less to do than he does, I ride along, just to get off the couch.

At the Ducati shop, he had the nerve to roll about six different models out, just to perch atop them and pretend he might buy one – someday. His wife and I laugh about the entire process, so naturally, I took a picture with my cell phone (I know!) and e-mailed it to her.

As someone who labored mightily in makeshift darkrooms in smelly, drafty bathrooms to manufacture black-and-white photographs, this entire, instantaneous process is mind-boggling, but I digress.

It actually worked. She got the picture and sent back a text message, another miracle process which everyone else seems to take for granted. She asked if the picture was from a motorcycling class.

I though she was kidding and sent back (in about 15 minutes of hunt-and-peck composition) a message that he was about to not buy another motorcycle. She started text-chatting about her days on a Harley.

I actually asked the husband if I could call his wife “a tramp” in the next text.

I know, I know. All women Harley riders are not tramps. Just the interesting ones. It was a joke. Put down the guns. I once called a divorced and dating woman a “slut” and never heard the end of it.

With husband permission, I sent off the insult. Within a few minutes there was a highly emotional (and well-typed) response about how hurtful that was.

Good God, I did it again.

In my typically stumbling typing I returned an apology just as fast as my fat fingers would allow. I felt terrible. What would I say to her when we got home? Would flowers and candy be required?

When we finally got home, I apologized immediately. She looked at me as if I just got off a flying saucer. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Tramp,” said the husband to the wife, trying to make matters worse. He thinks he is funny, too.

Thinking that she had decided to ignore the whole childish incident, we all let it drop.

Until the next Saturday.

When the woman who got the picture and the text message called. She wanted to know why I called her a tramp. Apparently, I had the wrong number punched into my cell phone. I had this stranger’s number instead of the wife’s.

That led to another round of apologies until she started laughing. She thought the whole incident was rather funny and promised not to send her linebacker brother over to kill me.

I promise never to do anything that stupid again – at least until the next time he pretends to buy a motorcycle.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.