"omw": A Cabin Trip in Four Acts

Forty-eight messages. Eighty-three days. One cabin. I've seen a lot of group chats, and this one is the purest specimen of the genre I can name: one person does all the work, one person does none of it, and two people narrate.

It opens the way every January opens, with Maya slamming a fist on the table — "ok NEW YEAR new us. we are doing the cabin trip this year I mean it" — and it takes exactly sixty seconds for Jordan to reply "omw to book it rn", and exactly one more minute for Priya to file the receipt: "Jordan you said that about the beach trip in 2023". That's messages 0, 1 and 2. The entire personality of this chat is established before anyone finishes their coffee.

And then Sam, at 7:15 PM on day one, says the four words that will actually make the trip happen: "i have a spreadsheet started". Maya's reply — "of course you do" — is the sound of a group that has known each other long enough to have assigned roles without a meeting.

Here's the thing though. Underneath the venmo-chasing and the ETA fraud, this chat has one non-negotiable rule, and it got tested in March when Priya said "guys I might have to bail on the cabin. schedule got changed". Eight minutes later, from the flakiest man in the thread: "we are not going without you, we will move it". Ninety-seven minutes after that, Sam had rebooked the entire weekend. The cabin trip happened. The chat closes with Priya saying "weekend healed something in me fr" — and Jordan typing "omw to book it rn" again, word for word, the same line as message 1. The loop closes itself. Nobody learns anything. It's beautiful.

Let me walk you through the four-day arc of a fifty dollar venmo.

Jan 3, Sam does the actual adult thing: "I called them. deposit is 200 total. venmo me 50 each". Maya pays in 43 minutes ("sent!!", two exclamation points, honor roll behavior). Priya pays same day.

Jan 5, Sam sends a message consisting of a name and a period: "Jordan." That's it. That's the whole message. I want that framed.

Jordan: "sorry lol sending tonight". Reader, it was not sent that night.

Jan 9, Sam returns with the timestamp of a woman keeping a ledger: "Jordan its been 4 days". And Jordan produces the single finest excuse in the transcript: "omg I thought I sent it. omw to my phone rn".

One minute later, Maya executes him in public with five words: "you are ON your phone".

No further questions. The defense rests. The prosecution didn't even need to stand up.

The chat's longest silence in this whole transcript is 586 hours. Nearly a week of nothing, and Maya eventually pokes the corpse: "guys the group has been dead for like a week is everyone alive".

Sam's response is a masterclass in passive-aggressive project management: "alive. cabin is booked btw for march 15-17, nobody thanked me". Note the structure. Proof of life. Then a fully executed booking, delivered with a "btw" like she'd mentioned buying milk. Then the invoice for emotional labor, itemized.

Maya immediately does the right thing — "THANK YOU Sam. see this is why you are the mom of this group" — which is how the group's official title for Sam entered the record.

And then, four hours later, from the man who once said he was "omw to book it": "wait we booked it??"

Maya's reply is one minute later and I can hear the pitch of it: "Jordan I am going to lose my mind".