Save the World. NBD.

To the educational professional faction of my readership, allow me to apologize on behalf of America and the 160 character text limit. In the youth class I help teach at church, we had a little test – before you get all worked up, this was merely an opportunity for the kids to display their knowledge in an attempt to win prizes… We haven’t gone off the deep end and implemented some type of system that encourages kids to actually learn the Bible. I’m not sure if that was sarcastic or not. Regardless, it was only a means to tell you this – More than one teenage male in the class physically wrote the following response: “IDK.” Seriously… Seriously?

In an age where grown men can sit silently and send a message that reads “LOL”, this is getting out of hand. While I respect a man that can have radioactive beams shot into his scrotum, I’ve never been a big Lance Armstrong fan. However, as I’m watching Jesus Shuttlesworth light up Los Angeles like the spotlights the cocky FBI guy aims at Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard, I find myself agreeing with every word from the mouth of pantsless Lance - No male over 30 should ever use a colon-dash-close-parenthesis.

In order to try to fulfill Ms. Tracy’s expectations from high school English and weave a common thread throughout my writing, do you really think John McClane would write “Hans looked sooo >:-0 when I threw him off the roof. LOL. TTYL” to Sergeant Al Powell (formerly Lieutenant Carl Winslow)? The man ran barefoot over 15 feet of glass shards while dodging Eastern European machine gun fire. If they had invented text messaging by the second time John and Holly got back together, he would be exactly 100% more likely to text “Yipee-Kay-Yay, Mister Falcon” than anything involving a smiley face.

Now Lucy McClane may be somewhat excused if she sends the occasional less-than-three to the awkward kid from the Mac commercials during Die Hard 4. I’m not saying I dislike it any less, but I’m not exactly going to talk trash to the officer’s daughter after he shot himself through the shoulder in order to get a bullet into the guy who had him in a choke hold.

Think how much harder it would have been for Zeus to figure out how to get exactly 4 gallons of water using only a 3-gallon jug and a 5-gallon jug at the elephant fountain if Simon Gruber had sent the riddle to him in 13-year-old-girl-text… New York City would have exploded. Bottom line.

I don’t expect you to observe all of the obscure rules of American grammar, but allow me to kindly request that we, as one nation, under God, indivisible, use actual words with liberty and justice for all.

Remember: only you can prevent the country’s most famous cities from being attacked by terrorists.