Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like. . .

. . . whoever had my new cell phone number before I did?

For all my hatred of cell phones, I caved and got one. I’ve been traveling a lot in the past six months, and the experience seems to have convinced me that the convenience of a cell phone has become a necessity—either that or I secretly wish to be one of those people who switch on their phones the moment the plane stops, because it is just so fucking important to make sure whoever is meeting them at the airport knows they want cabbage rolls for dinner.

So anyway, I now have a cell phone, whose number I’ve given to all of three people who are not given to verbosity. Yet my phone rings two or three times a day and receives text messages more frequently. I’ve already forgotten my PIN, so I can’t check my messages, and until Monday I was just deleting the text messages, which bring my poor little English-professorin’ heart down low: hey! y u dont call me baby xoxx.

So this is the future of English. But, believe it or not, the language is not what intrigues me. No, what intrigues me is that, since I’ve been paying attention, the messages have all been sent from different numbers and signed with different women’s names. Last night, when I was back home grading papers by midnight after getting allegedly boozy with some colleagues, I nearly jumped out of my skin when the phone chimed as, oh, let’s call her “Trixie” sent a text message—busy? want 2 c u now—at 2:43 a.m., which was technically Sunday morning. Since I was reasonably certain that Trixie wouldn’t want to talk about the dean or whatever, I was kind of tempted, but I restrained myself: it is bad manners to answer someone else’s booty call.

Though the messages never have salutations, I’ve figured out that the former owner of my cell number is called Sean (hey, it is a research degree), which may or may not be his (or her) real name. Moreover, in the days I haven’t been deleting the messages, I’ve compiled a portion of Sean’s little black book. My plan doesn’t include free text messages; otherwise, I’d put all the texters in touch with each other and choreograph my own telephonic episode of Jerry Springer. Indeed, could that be why Sean (or “Sean”) ditched this number?