"Siwi, can you tell me how to get to Sebastopol?"

So the other day I was eating dinner with one of those awful city women my mother always warned me about.  She was the VP of SP Publishing and I was trying to sell my recently completed manuscript entitled "I For One Care Less for Them:  How I Kicked the Cupcake Habit and Learned to Love the Muffin".

Ms. Huffingtonstone ordered an espresso after dinner but promptly sent it back.  "Like shit, it tastes", she said, as she pulled out her rather expensive smart phone.  "It's so sad that the lengths that one must go to to get a decent cup of coffee."  She sent a text to someone and then tucked in to a piece of Tiramisu.  A few moments later she received a text, threw down her fork in utter frustration, and replied.

"It's also sad that one can't find good help these days," she said, her thumbs dancing across the screen.

"What is the problem?" I asked.

"My new assistant.  You'd think that after two weeks on the job she'd have it down.  How hard is it to remember that I drink venti soy caramel machiatos, no whip?  Seriously."

"Venti whatnows?"

She set down her phone.  "Thank God for text messaging, that's all I can say.  I can still remember the days when I'd have no choice but to send her back out there and get it right.  Of course, they learned faster when they had to go back out in the rain and sleet and snow..."

As she spoke I thought to myself - a simple text message kept this poor over privileged New York woman from the minor disaster of having to suffer through bad coffee, but what if, say, the British had had smart phones and text messaging during the Battle of Balaclava, October 25 1854?  Might the Charge of the Light Brigade never happened?

For those of you not bothering to go to the link, the Charge of the Light Brigade was an ill-fated charge that took place during the battle.  It seems that a mix of mis-interpreted orders, bad handwriting, and even personal rivalries amongst officers contributed to sending the Light Brigade of Calvary (about 670 men in rather dashing uniforms) down a Valley of Death into the teeth of an established Russian artillery battery, when they should have been attacking Russian artillery that was already retreating from the so-called "Causeway Heights".

It was bad.

But again, I ask you:  what if the British had texts in 1854?

Lord Raglan:  Lord Cardigan, my dear fellow!
Lord Cardigan:  Sir?
Lord Raglan:  It is my duty to inform you that you are making a most egregious error.
Lord Cardigan:  Milord?
Lord Raglan:  I want you to take the Russian guns from the Causeway Heights.  NOT the ones in the valley, towards which you are now gallantly leading your Brigade.  But my dear sir, if you lead your force in the direction in which you are now heading, your men will be blown into tiny tiny bits despite the fact that they will naturally fight with incredible bravery and tenacity (as they are British).
Lord Cardigan:  You having me on?
Lord Raglan:  brb.
Lord Raglan:  Look at this:

Lord Cardigan:  Oh dear dear me.
Lord Raglan: See?
Lord Cardigan:  Perfectly milord.  That would have been disastrous.
Lord Raglan:  Indeed.  Thank God for these amazing communication machines.
Lord Cardigan:  Here him!  Here him!
Lord Raglan:  Hey, get a load of this:

Lord Cardigan:  HOT!

I thought about bringing all this up to Mrs. Huffingtonstonington (is that the same name I used last time....eh.  I don't care), but decided it wouldn't help my cause.  As it was, my manuscript was rejected, so I should have just taken the opportunity to geek out.