"We Swapped Phones for a Week. We Should've Read the Texts First."

The bet started innocently enough—one drunken night at our favorite dive bar, between rounds of tequila shots and a heated debate about privacy in relationships.

"You wouldn't last a day in my digital world," Jamie slurred, twirling his iPhone like a poker chip.

"Please," I scoffed. "Your Instagram DMs are probably just your mom sending cat memes."

That's how we ended up trading phones for seven days. No cheating. No sneakily logging out of accounts. Full access.

We should've read the texts first.

Day 1:

I discovered Jamie had been texting his ex. Not in a flirty way—unless you count the 47 messages about Star Wars fan theories and whether Han Solo shot first (he did, obviously).

Jamie discovered my group chat with the girls, where we'd been planning his surprise birthday party for months.

Day 3:

His mom texted me: "Did you take your probiotics?" I replied: "No, but I did smoke weed in your bathroom last Thanksgiving."

Jamie, meanwhile, accidentally liked a two-year-old Instagram photo of my college boyfriend. Then panic-unliked it. Then re-liked it with a comment: "Great smile!"

Day 5:

The real trouble started when Jamie's boss texted: "Where's the quarterly report?"

I, having zero context, responded: "Where's my goddamn respect, Janet?"

Jamie spent the afternoon explaining to HR that no, he didn't have a drug problem, and yes, he'd be happy to attend sensitivity training.

Day 7:

We met back at the same bar, sliding our phones across the sticky table like spies exchanging briefcases.

"You have 127 unread emails," Jamie said.

"You have a Tinder notification," I replied.

Silence.

Then, simultaneously, we burst out laughing.

Turns out the notification was from two years ago—back when we'd just started dating and Jamie had forgotten to delete the app. And those emails? All spam from a pottery class I'd taken once.

Now we have two rules:

No more tequila bets

If we ever swap phones again, we're deleting Janet's number first