I recently went on a road trip with a friend of mine. She drove, and when she dropped me back off at my house I was eager to get inside and accidentally left my purse in her car. Under normal circumstances it would have been an issue, but not a big one. Once I started to think about the situation and how to solve it however I made several disturbing revelations.
- A little while earlier I pushed my purse under the seat when we got out at a gas station, and knew she wouldn’t see and knew there was no chance she would come across it, at least for a few days, without me telling her it was specifically in her car.
- My cell phone is in my purse, and it’s my only phone so there is no way to call her and let her know it’s in there.
- My car keys are also in the purse, in her car, with my phone so I can’t even drive to her house (or anyone else’s for that matter) and try to get them back.
It was at that point I began to panic. Until I remembered something I had seen a few days earlier on Verizon’s webpage. Free text messaging. As long as you have an internet connection, you can in most cases text message your friends from your home computer. You have to know their phone number, as well as their cell phone provider in order to use the service. In most cases you will have to text a Verizon customer from Verizon’s site, a Cingular customer from Cingular’s site etc.
In the end I was able to send her a text message explaining the situation, and she returned with my purse a few minutes later. In general I think text messaging from your computer is a great idea. It is cheaper in the respect that you don’t have to pay to send the message (although the recipient may be changed for receiving it) and it is much easier to type a message on a computer keyboard than it is on a small cell phone touch pad.