Pigeons

My friends and I have weird class schedules here on campus, but they usually coincide for lunch. And with a few exceptions, lunch for us lasts about an hour while we sit around in Upper Powell and goof off. No, we don't need an hour to eat. It's just not worth the climb up four flights of stairs to get back to the dorm room, only to have to turn around and head to calculus or chem lab or humanities or whatever we happen to have that day.

Anyway, in the extra forty or so minutes that we DON'T need, the topics of conversation can get pretty random. And truth be told, I don't remember exactly how the topic came up (probably David and his random subject changes) but somehow we got to talking about messenger pigeons.

David described them as 'ye olde-time text-messaging services,' which resulted in us contemplating the kinds of 'texts' people might have sent in medieval times.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a noble with enough money to afford your own messenger pigeons, which are finicky and kind of gross (as well as scary, if you ask my brother). Not only are they a pain to take care of, but they also take a few days to get to where they're going, no doubt. You send a message to your parents, living far away for whatever unknown reason, telling them that you're going to marry the man/woman/(animal?) of your dreams:

You: Forsooth, Mother and Father, I beg your blessing for my upcoming nuptials.

You wait with bated breath for the week or so it takes for your pigeon to reach them (hoping that it actually DOES and doesn't get lost in cyberspace - er, the wilderness). When finally your parents' long-awaited reply arrives, you behold this message:

Father: LOL.

Wouldn't it just piss you off? :)