831

Remember back in the day before the advent of cellphones, in high school I had a beeper.

Yes, I'm that old.

My friends and I would come up with ways to say words without actually typing them in. With beepers, you couldn't anyway. Beepers just gave out numbers. So if my Mom wanted me to call her after I got home, she would leave me the number she was calling from on my beeper. Mine was dark green and also gave me the time and date. A friend had a beeper in the shape of a car; mine wasn't that extravagant. Just a boxy green one.

My favorite number I still use today in text is 831: means EIGHT letters, THREE words, ONE meaning. I told Sam about that one time and she didn't know what that meant. She did remember having a beeper. When she found out, she was delighted...like she learned something new.

She called me last night for the first time in a week.

831