I don't know why it annoys me. Nobody bothers with crap like spelling or grammar or punctuation, so I should just let it go. Join the crowd. Type incomprehensible messages on my $500 phone and slap a few happy faces at the end.

For some reason, though, I just can't let it go. Steve is writing a text to a new guy. They went out to dinner, then to a club, but somehow they got separated and Steve went home alone. I'm eating a muesli-and-fruit cup at our neighborhood coffee shop; he's tip-tip-tapping on his phone. Naturally I'm curious, so when he says, "You want to read it?" I say okay.

And this, reproduced exactly, is what he wrote: "had a great time last night sorry i didn't blow you off"

"Nice," I say. I try to get my eyes to twinkle. "That is really fun."

Of course, I've never been great at faux-sincerity. "Okay, grandma," Steve sighs. "What's wrong with it?"

I take a sip of coffee to fortify myself. "You know, punctuation wasn't invented just to make texting difficult. You need, at the very least, a semi-colon, unless you're saying you really wish you'd orally serviced him."

Steve looks at his phone again, then back at me. "Leave it to you to read it that way," he says. "Anybody else would know what I meant."

"When you use the language properly," I say, "you remove all semblance of doubt."

He glares at me for a few minutes, then goes back to the tiny keyboard. Tap tap tap, I hear from across the table as I ferry melon balls to my mouth. Finally he says, "You'll approve of this one," and he hands his phone to me.

"went to pee and guess i missed you," it reads.

"You know," I say, suppressing a sigh, "maybe you should forget about apologizing. It sounds strange without any context. Just tell him you had a wonderful time and you're looking forward to seeing him again."

He looks like he's going to fling his croissant at my polo shirt but he picks up the phone instead. This text takes him literally half an hour to compose. He's changing screens. He's hitting three buttons at once. He's capitalizing, he's punctuating. I'm actually starting to feel proud of him. And he's going to be proud of himself, I think, as he feels the sense of achievement that comes with correctly employing one's native tongue. For probably the first time in his short life he's going to send a text that's not open to random interpretation.

"Now, wasn't that worth it?" I say as he finishes his work and hands me the phone.

He smiles sheepishly. "Yeah," he says. "You were right, of course."

And then I read this on his phone: "I enjoyed eating dinner with you on our first date. Now I'm really looking forward to number two."

It's a bit difficult for me to muster up a supportive smile, but I manage a quick, "That's excellent." He hits the send button as a waiter appears with the check, and I decide that I could use the bathroom as well.