Obituary - That Aunt You Never Liked

That Aunt You Never Liked, 87, died January 14 at The Hearth at Windermere Senior Living Community in Fishers. Or was it Hamilton Trace? It's hard to remember; you really haven't cared until it came up just now. With her constant stream of snide comments directed at your mother, her decades of Christmas gifts to you based around a theme that interested you briefly when you were seven, her apparent inability to quite remember your name correctly, and the fetid, nauseating casseroles she used to bring to family gatherings, That Aunt You Never Liked filled your childhood with fond memories . . . well, with vivid memories, at least. Now you will never again hear her raspy, cigarette-choked voice calling you into the kitchen--at a volume 25 decibels higher than necessary--or cackling at her own off-color jokes at your mother's expense. Never more will you scrub her salmon-pink lipstick from coffee cups or from your own cheek. Your extensive collection of that thing that interested you for a while when you were seven will grow no further. Funeral services for That Aunt You Never Liked will be at Randall & Roberts Allisonville Road Chapel on January 18. With your parents at their winter house in Florida and your sister tied up with work and the kids in Oregon, you're the only member of the immediate family who's close by. Don't you think you should go to the funeral--you know, to represent the family? Oh, I know you had your differences with That Aunt You Never Liked, but it's the right and decent thing to do.

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Elderly Woman Sends Text Message

INDIANAPOLIS - An elderly woman became the talk of her family today after miraculously turning on a cellular phone and successfully typing, and then sending, a 23-word text message to her 18-year-old grandson.

Maureen Hamilton, 84, is believed to have navigated her way through the menu options of her Nokia 1680 handset without needing assistance - eventually arriving at the "compose message" tab inside her messages folder.

"Don't ask me how I got there", said the retired former shop assistant. "To be honest I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I think I clicked on something called "settings"... no wait, it was called, err... oh, what was the name of it? Anyway, I wasn't even aware I'd sent a text message until my grandson Charlie sent some kind of reply to my thingy box. At least I think it was from him; I haven't been able to open it yet".

The incident has apparently become the source of much amusement across family lines, with Maureen's eldest daughter Megan reportedly spending her entire evening enthusiastically relaying the anecdote to other relatives.

"The funny thing about this is that I barely know how to send text messages myself", said the 54-year-old. "So the last thing I expected to see was Charlie standing in the doorway telling me he'd just received a text from his nan - the very same nan who until last week didn't even know what an email was".

In an attempt to further assist his grandma with understanding the capabilities of her phone this evening, college student Charlie is thought to have physically directed her through the phone's various features, only for her to fall into a state of bewilderment upon learning that her device also doubles up as a camera.

Image credit: Flickr. Carolyn Coles. Creative commons.