Twilight Zone Ways of Communication

A looooooooong time ago, when Beverly Hills 90210 was the hottest thing on TV, and it was really hip to hang a CD on your neck, and listening to 2 Live Crew belting out Me So Horny was really really the in thing, not many of us could afford that gigantic water bottle-like gadget affectionately known as handphones. Or mobile phones. Or cellular phones.

The affable ones could afford zone phones. What are zone phones? Legend has it that zone phones are like mobile phones. The only difference is, you need to be in certain zones to gain reception. I suppose Singapore Telecoms forgot to remove this sign. Thank you. It helps remind me how old I am now.

We also had pager phones. This is a cross breed of a pager and a telephone. A person pages for you, then you call that person. Both zone phone and pager phone have died natural deaths. No. You can't receive incoming calls. Only make outgoing calls.

And then there were pagers. Mine was a motorolla bought in 1992. With vibrator, okay? And it cost an additional $80. I remember paying $280 for the miserable piece of gadget right after I received my pay cheque for acting in the second episode of Sayang ... Mona. That pager had entered the drain, the toilet bowl (with urine) and also my friend's teh-O-pok-katai. I wanted to prove that my pager was durable. And water proof. The number was 4103477. Alas, the pager, too, is now in the archives of ancient history.

I also had one of these. It is called an alphanumeric pager. You press certain numbers on the keypads of a telephone and the receiver received your messages. Ultra cool. Except back then we said GEREK SIOOOOT!!! BAIK AR!!! PUASATI AR!!!!! Sure beat trying to remember 999 meant urgent. 111111 meant yes. 000000 meant can't make it. 143143143 meant i love you. 17-31707-1 also meant i love you. I lost my alphanumeric pager during one of those compulsory hari raya walkabouts with friends way back in 2000.

Ooooh yeah.. in 1995, they came up with voice mail. You could leave a message. And you could have some beautiful songs belting out into the sender's ear when he/she called. My song was "kau dan aku sudah ditakdirkan bertemu..." and hers was "... dan tiba-tiba kita jatuh cinta". And a retarded U appeared on your pager. Hutchinson pager service sucks. Your introduction song would be jiggety jig. Likewise, Sunpage. Singtel was the best.

Once upon a time, in 1998, I was so madly in love. I received a message in my pager. I rushed down, whipped out a phone card and started calling my pager number (damn! i forgot the number!) to retrieve a message. I pressed ##. And punched in the password. It was 2580852. Then I pressed 1 to listen to the message. It was a very irritating ugly female gender of the canine species singing (off key) "you're my sunshine after the rain.." I think someone must have told her that she sounded cute singing as though she had her tongue wagging out of her mouth. Yes, that was how I envisaged her. Angrily, I paged for her. I sent a 3704-5555555555 message.