Emoticons

Skyping is great because you can talk and see people all over the world for free. But the best part of all........... drumroll please......... is the emoticons.

It may sound silly, but my friend, who I'll refer to as Mary, and I were having a "visit" on skype when we were playing with the type features. We giggled when we saw the emoticons. Note: emoticons are the little faces and figures that can be sent to visually enhance a typed message in order to send an "emotion" with the message. Normally, I would have written these off as totally queer, but then Mary sent me a message with the dancing man. She giggled her wonderful giggle and then I got the message and totally cracked up. We must have sent a flurry of 20 senseless messages to and fro just to use the emoticons.

And we're not teenagers. It was the best laugh I'd had in a while. Maybe the fact that it was midnight, or I had been too cooped up in a tiny apartment with the family, or I just needed a good dose of "friend", but I tell you, it was a great time. I feel cheated now when I type a message for an email or a blog and there is no "emoticon", it feels so empty.