The other day, I was walking out of Kroger. It was the one near TCU where all the students shop, but it still looks presentable because it’s near the Colonial and I often see a lot of wealthy-looking older fellows with stately gray hair walking around with rotisserie chicken and maybe a bottle of wine.

I, meanwhile, had just checked out with my store-brand Cocoa Puffs and dishwasher soap.

As I walked out of the store, I noticed a younger fella walking toward me. He had his head buried in his phone, texting (or, “sexting,” as the kids are wont to do) away.

I understand that a lot of us are constantly distracted, but this particular young man was starting to draw some attention to himself. He was, even while texting confidently, walking with such purpose into the store. In front of me, a woman who was pushing a cart stopped to see which way he’d break when he spotted her in his path.

I’ve been distracted by technology, too. Recently, our morning reporter was working on an ongoing story right around our shift change. I sent him a text to let him know I was on my way to relieve him. I got in the car and headed his direction.

He texted back with a question, so I barked out a reply to my iphone machine, but I don’t trust the woman inside the iphone to take dictation, so at the next red light, I proofread the text before I sent it.

Around this time, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way I could talk to Jim in real time?”

Then I felt ashamed. Then I felt a little better because I learned I’m not the only one who forgets phones exist (In my defense, I do make a lot of phone calls. Just today, I called someone in El Paso. When was the last time you called someone in El Paso?).

Maybe this texting gentleman at Kroger was doing the same thing, carefully poring over his text to make sure he had correctly spelled the term “bae.”

Or maybe he was tweeting:

Again, I can understand. I used to tweet. In fact, I just logged into my account and found that I have 43 followers and several people have been tweeting at me, which is astonishing given that I haven’t actually posted anything since March and, prior to that, last October.

At first, I enjoyed twitter. I felt like a big man the time George P. Bush “favorited” one of my tweets:

But then the situation took a more negative turn:

I actually appreciated LJ Carlson naming me among some of the most influential names in the state. I explained the reason I was tweeting out what Greg Abbott had just said isn’t because I agree or disagree with him. Instead, I’m a reporter and that’s, you know, my job. LJ Carlson reacted unfavorably.

So I stopped using twitter.

And that freed me up to be paying attention as TCU Kroger Guy walked right into the woman’s shopping cart and then, I swear, didn’t look up! He took one step to the side, kept his eyes on his phone and kept walking.

I bet later he tweeted that he had an inexplicable grid-shaped bruise on his abdomen.