Last week, I discovered something fascinating — to me, at least.

My wife and I both have smartphones. Smartphones not only let you talk to people, but they also go on the Internet, send email, and play games. They're the reason that millions of people can now keep in constant touch with friends in far off places while completely ignoring loved ones just a few feet away.

The problem is that our phones have tiny little keyboards - my wife's phone only has a virtual keyboard on the screen, and mine has tiny little set keys so small I think of them as a G.I. Joe keyboard — so doing any of those things has been more trouble than it's worth. (It's better than the old days, where you couldn't go on the Internet at all, and to send a text you had to press the phone keypad, over and over again, to form letters. If you still have one of those phones, you're probably a senior citizen, a Luddite, or twelve.)

What I just discovered, though, is that my smartphone has a little button on the keyboard that looks like an old-fashioned radio-days microphone. Turns out you can press this button, talk into the phone, and your phone will type exactly what you said. (Well, almost exactly. It's not an exact science. You press the little microphone, say something like, "I am going to the store" and a second later, the phone types out, "I am golfing in a storm.")

I came home Wednesday night and told my wife about my new discovery, and her first reaction was to say, "Forget it — not doing it!"N (My wife is neither a senior citizen nor twelve, but she is something of a Luddite. She resists all technology until she's sure we're absolutely the last home in the country to sign on. We're still on the fence about those DVD thingees.) But after I showed her how easy it was, she was intrigued, and we sat there at the kitchen table for a half hour, talking into our phones, hitting "send" and then reading each other's messages out loud. (What did you say — boring? Like you had a better Wednesday night.)

After a while, we actually did get bored with that, and I started sending text messages to my twin sixteen-year-old daughters just to show off. I'd talk into the phone and send messages like "Hey, I just figured gout I can talk into my foam and it will type the words for meat!" and "This is total each cool, isn't hit?"

I didn't get an answer. I followed up with another text message: "By the wave, I am doing this without touching my keyhole. It's called boys recognition technology!"

No answer. Was her phone off? I hit the microphone button. "I am going to key pooing this until you read sponge!"

My phone rang. It was one of the girls.

"Stop!" she yelled into the phone. She hung up. My wife and I looked at each other.

I texted again. "You don't have to get some ad," I responded. "I'm just trying out some new deck knowledge wheat! Your gem a ration is too uptide!"

My phone rang. My daughter was actually calling me — we were communicating! "Your generation," she said, "Is so...frustrating! Every time you come across something that you just think is new, you act like you personally discovered it, even though it's been around for like ten years! It's embarrassing! Stop it now!"

She hung up again. I looked at my phone for a moment, then pressed the little microphone button.

"Don't be ham bare nest. We are using deck knowledge wheat to keep in tough with are chilled wren!" I texted.

My daughter, who had been just upstairs, stomped down the stairs and into the room.

"If you don't stop," she said, "I am going to take your "foam" when you aren't looking and I am going to throw it under a bush!" She stomped back out. Lines of communication were definitely down.

Even though she was right across the table from me, I sent my wife a text — "She seemed wheel eat mad! Do you thing we shut stop?"

"No, keep go ink," she responded. "This newt deck knowledge wheat is more phone than I than I real eyes it wood beam!"

To find out more about Peter McKay, please visit www.creators.com.