I'm not one of those people who live through their cell phones and e-mails. This is somewhat annoying to my friends who have their Blue Tooth attachment lodged in their ear canal at all times. Personally, I think those Blue Tooth things make you look like Lt. Uhura from Star Trek.

My friends will ask in an irritated tone, Didn't you get my text about the Pampered Chef party last night?

To which I reply, No, I don't even know how to text!

I tried it once and failed miserably. My kids were watching in complete horror. Geez, Mom, just stop it! You're too old to text!

It's true, I do struggle. Maybe because I can't see the little letters on the keypad. Why are they so small? I need a cell phone that comes in XL.

Have you seen those enormous remote controls and calculators you can buy now? I think it's supposed to be a gag gift, but hey, I can read those numbers!

I watch my kids text. It's amazing: their fingers fly across the keypad with lightning speed and precision, sending cryptic little messages to their friends. I can't even text OK. My phone has this crazy T-9 feature that tries to guess the word you're trying to text. My daughter sent me a text asking me to pick her up. All I wanted to write back was OK, but my phone kept insisting on Oklahoma.

Now why would someone want to write Oklahoma, for God's sake? I mean, how common is that as a reply? So I sent it, hoping she'd know it was her lame mother trying to text OK. Now, when my kids text me to say they need a ride home, they look for Mom's standard reply: Oklahoma. It's ridiculous!

The same goes for e-mails. Currently I have 446 unread e-mails. It takes all day to go through those things. Who has that kind of time? I have five kids; I can't spend hours in cyberspace, and who would want to? I get a lot of spam and a lot of it's distasteful. (I don't need anything enlarged, and frankly, I wish my husband would contract erectile dysfunction! Maybe then I'd have the time to go through my 400 e-mails.)

My least favorite e-mails are those chain letters. Even my mother sends them to me. I finally told her to knock it off. I have enough bad luck!

People that send those things are cowards, willing to jeopardize their friendships just in case the bad luck is real. They send the thing to 10 people they know (who were once considered friends before they received the cursed chain letter) and then breathe a sigh of relief.

For the record, people (and Mom), if you want me to keep forwarding those free Jamba Juice coupons and World Market Friends and Family discounts to you, you'd better take me off the chain letter list, Oklahoma?!

So maybe I'm not very savvy in this high tech age. I couldn't care less. All I know is I miss my kitchen wall phone with the enormous cord. That phone never died on me when I waited on hold for 20 minutes for the Dell computer customer service guy in India named Steve. (Yeah right, like your name is really Steve.)

When I finally upgraded to our cordless phone, I could never find the thing! It was missing for a couple of days. We finally found it in a basket of dirty laundry (talk about your dirty phone calls).

I just want to reassure my friends that I'm not neglecting them all intentionally, and I'm sorry that I missed the Pampered Chef party. It's just that I'm old fashioned and respond better to tried-and-true methods of communicating like carrier pigeon.