How many texts would you feel comfortable sending someone regarding a social event and not show up? My initial impression is that I would not want to go over 5. That should be enough to express generic interest, get directions, make banal comments about a mutual acquaintance [weather can be substituted for the hopelessly unimaginative] and express possible reasons for not attending, issued in reverse order of believability.

Yesterday, I became aware of one the most egregious abuses of anticipatory texting in the Age of Android’s, Berry’s and Pre’s — iPhones? What self-respecting aspiring techie wants to resemble every Mom and at the Mall? — Now while this text teaser’s example may be an outlier, in that the offending party is a Coral Gables lawyer, but even allowing for an exponential increase in the acceptable text count for those whose training rewards the elimination of simple exchanges, this guy still managed to go beyond the pale.

Over the course of 23 sent text messages [longer text which were broken into more than one outgoing message were counted as 1] within a 2.5 hour period, the anticipatory textor obtained and expressed the following information as to the potential social engagement at a respectable Zodiacal establishment which happens to sell alcohol in Coconut Grove:

• Time frame and directions
• Optimal arrival time
• Parking alternatives
• Male dress guidelines
• Female dress guidelines
• General vibe
• General vibe at different time intervals
• Mutual friends who might be in attendance
• Probabilities of mutual friends attendance
• Prospects of excluding one particular mutual friend
• Weather conditions at locale
• Requested impressions about the career movements of a ‘Simon Idol’ [sorry, was loud]
• Palpable excitement over event
• Regrets that ‘this’ hadn’t been done before
• Provided assurance that ‘this’ would occur more frequently

The person did not show. Lame of course, but it gets worse. See, the offending party was actually spotted at Houston’s in Coral Gables.

How to describe Houston’s? The vibe at Houston’s makes someone like the Partridge Family-era David Cassidy seem like a brute. They dress their employees in black turtlenecks which evoke images of unisex Euro-trashers gone zombie. Their employees ooze contempt for their clientele. “Take your order!? Like I don’t have enough on my mind.” You can actually hear people there utter phrases like, ‘try the sprouts, best in the city.’

If Frankie Five Angels Pentangeli weren’t already dead, a walk through Houston’s might kill him [or him them].