INDIANAPOLIS – An elderly woman became the talk of her family today after miraculously turning on a cellular phone and successfully typing, and then sending, a 23-word text message to her 18-year-old grandson.
Maureen Hamilton, 84, is believed to have navigated her way through the menu options of her Nokia 1680 handset without needing assistance – eventually arriving at the “compose message” tab inside her messages folder.
“Don’t ask me how I got there”, said the retired former shop assistant. “To be honest I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I think I clicked on something called “settings”… no wait, it was called, err… oh, what was the name of it? Anyway, I wasn’t even aware I’d sent a text message until my grandson Charlie sent some kind of reply to my thingy box. At least I think it was from him; I haven’t been able to open it yet”.
The incident has apparently become the source of much amusement across family lines, with Maureen’s eldest daughter Megan reportedly spending her entire evening enthusiastically relaying the anecdote to other relatives.
“The funny thing about this is that I barely know how to send text messages myself”, said the 54-year-old. “So the last thing I expected to see was Charlie standing in the doorway telling me he’d just received a text from his nan – the very same nan who until last week didn’t even know what an email was”.
In an attempt to further assist his grandma with understanding the capabilities of her phone this evening, college student Charlie is thought to have physically directed her through the phone’s various features, only for her to fall into a state of bewilderment upon learning that her device also doubles up as a camera.