Every parent's nightmare

Imagine seeing a Fed Ex truck driving up to your home with a package. It's a bill. For your child's text messaging.

It could happen.

Two Pennsylvania friends spent most of March in a text-messaging record atetempt, exchanging 217,000 texts. That sounds like a good weekend for some teens, but it meant an inches-thick itemized bill for $26,000 for one of the friends.

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," Andes told the Associated Press. he said Tuesday.

The two have been practically nonstop texters for about a decade. That led Andes to search 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.

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.

Surely, the apocalypse is near.