100% Helpful Texts for Planning

There's a very unfriendly service provided by Verizon [and, for all I know, every other data carrier] that sends you friendly texts as you are drawing near the end of your data plan. Getting these texts is a bit jarring - particularly if it's two weeks until your 'cycle' ends. Of course, there's a helpful link you can use to buy a larger data plan.  Data being like heroin, however, it's a dangerous and shameless thing for Verizon to offer.  Then again, charging you for data is obscene in the first place, so there you go.

Looking at this message recently, I realized: how amazing would it be if other things in life worked this way? For example: what if you could receive a text that would say, "You've lived 90% of your life span. You might want to start making arrangements."?  Think of the possibilities. Think of the angst you could avoid.

So, say today I got a text [presumably this would also be from a data carrier] that said, "You have used 75% of your life span. Relax - but don't get too comfy." At my age, that would mean I'd have about another 16 years left to live from today. So, if I got a chest pain, I could easily write it off as indigestion and perhaps save an ER trip. Indeed, had I received such a message back on Thanksgiving, everyone could've been far more calm as I lay in a heap on the floor - knowing with firm conviction [because data carriers never make errors] that I still have 16 years to live.

Granted, these texts would be even more jarring than the data-limit ones. Particularly that 90% one. If I got that one today, it'd mean I have only five years left. Presumably, that would come with links to things like living wills, cemetery plots and life insurance carriers.

Of course, let's not just be morbid [for once] and consider other applications. Toward the end of an evening with your spouse/partner/fuck-buddy you could get a text saying, "The person you are with has used up 90% of their energy this evening. You better get started with the foreplay."  In employment situations, too, it'd be useful: "You have spent 75% of your allotted tenure with your employer. Time to brush up the resume." Or sitting through a long, God-awful movie/conversation/lecture/concert/religious ceremony, you could get a text saying, "You have sat through 90% of this brutal and painful, eye-bleeding farce of an event". You could plan your nap accordingly. And for those of you dating, it'd be a great way to gauge the future of your relationship. You could get a text that says, "This relationship is 90% spent. Start losing weight and get your teeth whitened, Junior."

The possibilities are nearly endless.  Alas, your text plan/life span, etc. is not. This blog post is now 100% complete..