emoticon madness

let me clearly state, i am not a fan of emoticons.

:) or :( or ;) - i do not enjoy. the one with the tongue sticking out? that really gets my goat. in fact, before i was married, i wouldn't go out with a new guy based solely on the fact that he would text or email me an emoticon. they were serious business.

do lots of people i love and adore use them? absolutely.

but, do i cringe every time i see one? you betcha.

i've never confessed this on a mass scale because i don't want to make emoticon lovers feel bad. so, all you emoticon people who send them to me, don't stop now. i'll know why and things will get awkward.

this is all fascinating back story to my present situation.

aaron knows my emoticon disdain, so he regularly emails them to me. but not the ones you can create on the keyboard, rather the ones you can insert in gmail. they are intense. various colors, movements, graphics to choose from give the sender a smorgasbord of feelings to convey.

the problem is (which is my original issue with emoticons) they don't always convey what you're trying to say and a lot can get lost in translation.

case in point; i began sending them back to aaron when i really was annoyed. then temptation got the better of me and yesterday i wrote him a riddle, mostly comprised of the gmail emoticons. i was so excited for him to unlock the riddle and respond, but i never heard back. later that night, while he was in class, i text him and asked if he received my riddle. here is his reply:

"do you mean the one with a pile of poop in it?"

i dropped my phone. i was horrified and i paused. i would never send a pile of poop. he's totally mistaken. i sent a beehive with cute bees buzzing around it. i text him so and his reply:

"nope, that was a pile of poop with flies swarming it"

could it be? i started laughing so hard i couldn't function. no wonder he didn't reply. i thought it was magical that gmail would have a beehive. how sweet.

and that, folks, takes me back to my original point of why i hate emoticons. once again, i'm firmly planted in the 'i don't use those' camp. it feels good to be back.

you can judge for yourself. i've posted the beehive/poop below. in an email, the bees/flies are moving around. what do you think?