Their thumbs sure must be sore. Two central prefix = st1 /Pennsylvaniafriends spent most of March in a text - messaging record attempt, exchanging a thumbs-flying total of 217,000. For one of the two, that meant an inches-thick itemized bill for $ 26,000. Nick Andes, 29, and Doug Klinger, 30, were relying on their unlimited text messaging plans to get them through the escapade , so Andes didn't expect such a big bill. " It came in a box that cost $ 27.55 to send to me." he said. He said he "panicked" and called T-Mobile, which said it would investigate the charges. The two Lancaster-area residents have been practically non-stop texters for about a decade since they attended Berks Technical Institute together. That led Andes to searching for the largest monthly text message total he could find posted online: 182,000 sent in 2005 by Deepak Sharma in India. Andes and Klinger were able to set up their phones to send multiple messages. During a February test run they found they could send 6,000 or 7,000 messages on some days, prompting the March messaging marathon. " Most were either short phrases or one word, 'LOL' or 'Hello', things like that , with tons and tons of repeats," said Andes, reached by phone. Andes sent more than 140,000 messages, and Klinger sent more than 70,000 to end the month with a total of just over 217,000, he said. A spokesman for Guinness World Records didn't immediately return messages asking whether it would be certified as a record. April came as a relief to Andes' wife , Julie, who had found his phone tied up with texting when she tried to call him on lunch breaks. " She was tired of it the first few days into it, "Andes said. The two young men sent so many messages
in order to set a record for they were good friends for they had a lot to say to each other to train their thumbs