Look where you walk while texting

What's the first thing you learn when you go out walking?

That's right, watch where you're going.

Wednesday evening in New York City, a 15-year-old girl was walking down the street when she stepped into an open manhole cover. She fell only five feet, apparently landing in sewage. She and her parents are considering suing the NYC Department of Environmental Protection because the open manhole cover wasn't marked with orange cones.

I'm not going to mention the girl's name, even though it has been all over the news in NYC. I just don't see much point to it. There is more to the story, though.

She was texting while she was walking.

For the benefit of readers who might not know what that means, she was using her cell phone to type out a message with the idea of sending it to someone else with a cell phone -- a friend, a relative, a stalker.

Well, maybe not a stalker.

She certainly wasn't paying attention to where she was walking.

Now I remember reading somewhere that age 35 is the dividing line for texting. If you're under 35, the odds are you send and receive text messages; if older, you probably don't.

I have received one text message in my life -- from someone under 35. I have never sent one.

I'm not a total geezer. I do use my BlackBerry to send and receive e-mails, but I admit the small screen and my large thumbs are not the greatest fit in the world.

If I were cynical, I might say that the young lady was lucky, that actually things like this might be referred to by my Social Darwinian friends as "thinning the herd."

Instead, I think I'll just hope she learned from the experience.