Believe me when I tell you that I’ve received my fair share of spam text messages. I’ve been congratulated for winning competitions I never signed up for, informed that I must act quickly because a loved one has recently been taken to prison, and courted by mysterious “women” asking me if I have interest in having a “wild night that I’ll never forget.” That last one gets me every time because I paid attention in kindergarten, I remember “stranger danger,” and I’ve seen the movie where an unsuspecting person is asked to meet someone in a park. I believe I’m good, kind stranger, but thank you.
On Wednesday, October 3, 2018, at approximately 2:20 EST, I received a text message from a number not in my phone, only this time, I was elated. My iPhone informed that the message was from “Maybe: Donald Trump,” so naturally, my curiosity was peaked. President Trump had sent me a personal text message on the same day that FEMA’s Wireless Emergency Alert system was sending out a mass text message to all American cell phone users.
President Trump’s message was kind, inquisitive, and thoughtful.
“Daniel, it’s Donald. This is a text message from me. Believe me, when I send a text message, it’s the greatest text message in the world. No one sends better text messages than me.”
I was flustered, stomach full of butterflies, and although caught off guard, I felt like the world seemed to melt away. It was just me and Donald, everything else was meaningless. I had to respond.
“Hello, Mr. President. This..this is so unexpected..” I was blushing as I continued to type. “I never thought I’d hear from you, and yet, here we are.” My heart was racing faster than I thought possible.
President Trump was typing, I saw the ellipsis on his side of the text box. “…” The suspense was haunting, and yet, I waited with nervous excitement.
“…” “Listen, my text messages are the most advanced in the world. Not even China sends text messages like me.”
My heart rate was off the charts, more in time with a Neil Pert drum solo than a normal human heartbeat. I took a break from texting to check the news. I knew that prior to receiving this text, President Trump announced that he planned to conduct the first nationwide test of the government’s Presidential Alert system. The purpose of the system, which has come in many iterations over the years such as radio broadcasts to leaflets dropped from aircraft, is to alert as many US citizens as possible of a national emergency. Be it a natural disaster or news that foreign enemies have reached American soil, the Presidential Alert System will be our saving grace.
While I was corresponding with the President, enamored with his prose, feeling as if I were in a dream I’d hope to never wake from, millions of Americans received this text message.
Though the message was intended to be sent to every cell phone in the US, people on all major carriers, with phones of all types, reported that they failed to receive the alert. FEMA says on its website, “WEA (Wireless Emergency Alert) capabilities were available beginning in April 2012, but many mobile devices, especially older ones, are not WEA-capable.” Now, assuming older phones imply “flip,” “rotary,” or the classic “banana,” most people did receive this message, but why the sudden test?
Occasionally, I’ll receive weather warning text alerts or amber alerts, both of which I take very seriously, but never emergency text messages. As to why this test alert was sent out, David Simpson, former chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau had this to say:
“A very important reason to test, and why we initiated it to test locally, state-level, and then ultimately testing at the presidential level, is to discover the actual results versus what should happen theoretically.”
I couldn’t wait any longer, I had to respond to the President.
“Mr. President, I..I don’t know what to say. I feel as if I’ve known you my whole life and yet, we’ve never had the chance to meet face to face. Forgive me if this is too forward but…would you like to grab a beer sometime?”
The ellipses popped up, then disappeared. They came back…and disappeared yet again. President Trump didn’t know how to respond. We had ‘read receipts’ turned on for this conversation, and he read my previous text at 2:20 pm EST. It was 2:38 pm EST.
The ellipses returned and then, a message.
“Presidential Alert: THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.
Just like that, it had happened. The President of the United States of America had ghosted me, leaving me with nothing but unanswered questions and the thought of what could have been.
