I’ll call him Robbie, but that is not his real name.

“Dear Sean,” his email began, “My wife is upset because I sent a text to her grandmother for her 91st birthday, but autocorrect screwed it up. Now my wife won’t talk to me.”

Here is what Robbie’s text read:

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAD GRANNY…!”

Let me start by saying that you’re not alone, Robbie. Each day, worldwide, there are 23 billion texts sent. That’s 300,000 texts per second. Mistakes happen.

Frankly, yours could have been worse. I have a friend, for example, who was asked to do the scripture reading at church. His elderly pastor called when my friend was “hopping” into the shower.

Enter autocorrect.

My friend’s text read: “Let me call you in a few minutes, I’m just pooping in the shower.”

I have another friend who went on a date with a nice young woman. They had a lovely time, and after the date, they planned a follow-up date via text.

“This Thursday will be fun!” texted my friend.

“I’m looking forward to

seeing you again!” came her reply.

“Yay!” my friend texted. “I can’t wait to see those big beautiful dimples!”

Unfortunately, my friend hit the send button before he realized autocorrect had changed “dimples” into a word that rhymes with “fipples.”

I know a man who was texting with his adult daughter, just last week, when autocorrect came into the picture.

His daughter texted, “What are you doing, Dad?”

Her father’s reply came back, “Just looking at boobs right now.”

“What?”

Realizing that autocorrect had struck again, the father tried to repair the damage by sending a follow-up text, in all caps:

“I MEANT I’M BUYING A PAIR OF COWBOY BOOBS!” he texted.

The daughter texted back. “No judgement.”

So we can see that autocorrect is not always our friend.

Then there was the time…