By the time you read this column, I will be a very wealthy man. No, I didn’t just win the lottery. Neither did a distant great-aunt pass away, leaving me a huge inheritance that resulted from cashing in her Franklin Mint commemorative figurine collection.
The manner in which I have amassed my fortune is the good old-fashioned honest way. I don’t mean through imagination, hard work, and perseverance. I’m about to get richer than I could ever have imagined in my wildest dreams by coming up with a gimmicky little mobile phone app that everyone in the universe will be convinced they cannot live without. Even at a mere 99 cents a pop, and even if only one in 10 people buy it, the money I net with this little honey will have me nipping at the hindies of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal for the dubious title of richest billionaire on the planet.
So what exactly is this revolutionary new app that has the GPS unsure of its direction and Siri talking in her sleep mode? You will probably be able to guess if I divulge that the working name for my earth-shattering invention is “The Subtext App.”
Here’s how it works. Let’s take a simple text message as an example. You check your phone before heading off to bed and notice your sweetie has texted you with the words “I’ll be home L8 2morrow nite.” Lucky for you, you’ve downloaded The Subtext App, which allows you to read between the lines and decipher the deeper meaning of the message scrolling across your screen. What seemed like a straightforward message at first glance now takes on an entire slew of subtle nuances. Is home a geographical location or a psychological state of mind? Is time just a matter of relative chronology, or can separate universes coexist simultaneously? Why are you getting this text message just before bedtime? Couldn’t it have waited until morning? Or wouldn’t it have been more considerate to have texted earlier in the evening when you were still alert and could have texted back something clever and romantic? And why text at all when Skyping or Facetime would have been so much more intimate?
That’s the beauty of The Subtext App and why it is certain to turn the texting world on its head once the phenom becomes available. If you thought that texting while driving was dangerous, imagine the hazards and pitfalls headed your way if you are stupid and reckless enough to subtext while behind the wheel of a vehicle hurdling down the road at breakneck speed. “Meet u 4 coffee” implies an informal immediacy that may subconsciously augment the physical force applied on the accelerator pedal by the foot of the driver. And is more caffeine really necessary in a world driven to the brink of extinction by this incessant need to get to our next destination quicker and sooner? On the other hand, “please slo down, deer Xing” might be mistaken as a recreational area where Bambi and cohorts can be observed cross-country skiing in their natural habitat. And perhaps this subtext might solve the related age-old question as to the motivation that induced the chicken to traverse the roadway.
How would The Subtext App handle what is probably the most texted message ever: “where r u?” What looks on the surface like an obvious question regarding one’s whereabouts within the continuum of space takes on a myriad of interpretations when run through the subtext filter. Perhaps a better question would be why are you in whatever place you propose to be? And wherever this place is, could you not have texted earlier and given me some kind of courteous notice that you might not be in the place I was expecting you to be even though, technically, I never even hinted that here’s where I wanted you to be.
Oh yes, when it comes to hookups and breakups, The Subtext App sits front row and centre in clarifying complex interactions (as well as adding confusion to perfectly comprehendible statements of intent). For a measly extra 49 cents, you can purchase The Profile App To The Subtext App which allows you to navigate through all those LinkedIn/Instagram/Facebook profiles and see the real person with whom you are about to get involved instead of the exaggerated misrepresentations that have been designed to conceal the actual ogre who will likely ruin your next couple of years of life.
For sure, once you install the Profile App To The Subtext App (PATTSA), you will know once and for all that “likes to go for romantic moonlit walks along the beach in the rain” comes with the fine print “provided it does not conflict with Monster Truck Demolition Derby or repeats of the 2009 World Dart Throwing Championship.” Similarly, “loves to cook exotic dishes to be shared under candlelight with a fine 1998 Pinot Noir” comes out of the subtext filter as “but will settle for frozen packaged burger patties on white buns and a case of Moosehead right out of the can because all the glasses are still sitting in the unfixed dishwasher.”
Nobody asked me, but it’s powerfully obvious that The Subtext App is about to become an unmitigated success story and the ranks of the world’s billionaires will soon be joined by somebody who, just a short while ago, had to keep his pickup held together with duct tape. If you buy the product and like it, drop me a text. Don’t be surprised if you don’t receive a reply right away. I may be getting ready for my polo match with the Duke of Sussex. My pony has gone a bit lame, so I’ll be spending the next little while applying layers of duct tape to its sore joints.