Code 007

Originally Posted in Suavv Magazaine

Here is the scene you are a young man/woman and meet someone out. You decide that you want to get to know each other better. The conversation goes like this (from the point of view of male)

“Hey my name is Chuck what is your name?”

 “Nice to meet you Donna”

 “Here is my pager number”

 “Did you say this is your pager number?”

That is right my young readers in the days before Smart Phones, Facebook and Twitter the most cutting edge equipment to contact someone were a Pager. This article is dedicated to a bygone era of the Pager/Beeper.

 Now for my younger readers the scenario described actually happened. For a man there was nothing more disappointing then having a female not give you her number but offer her beeper number. Don’t think that because they were not phones that pagers lead to fewer arguments. Like cell phones the pager would always go off at the wrong time. Unlike cell phones there were some excuses that could somewhat get you out of a jam. They were:

“There was no pay phone around to call you back”

“Nobody had a quarter”

“My beeper wasn’t on vibrate and I never heard it’

“I don’t know whose number that is”

 

There were a million Pager companies such as Page Mart, 1^st Page, Chickenwing Communications (not real one but it could have been). Like today’s cell phones “Beepers” came in different colors and sizes. A bill would range from $15-$20s a month which if you were not paying attention could turn into $100 quickly. The places to pay your pager bills varied but mostly you paid at those places that sold speakers and stereo equipment. Like all things there was a “Gucci/Prada” (Insert any high priced product name here) of pagers. They were called Sky Pagers and the most important feature was the network. You could be in East Jiblip and get a page from anywhere. Most Rappers had them (A Tribe called Quest did an entire song singing the praises of Sky Page)

Another aspect of the Pager was the individual codes that would be assigned to friends and family. Everyone wanted to use the code 007 as if that actually meant you were a spy or something. Initially putting in a number and adding 911 would get an immediate return call. This slowly also began to change and “911” pages began to get ignored also. The beginning of the end for pagers being the most dominant form of communications was when some pager companies decided that they would use operators that you could call and give them the message that would be typed and sent to your pager. Not much later the cell phone which had previously been the size of a VCR or were connected to a bag became more affordable and everyone started getting one. Pagers suddenly became obsolete. So if you are older then 35 chances are you probably owe 1^st Page $15 for your last pager bill in 1992.

This article is in memory of the Pagers.

I am Chuck Da Oldhead.

Page me