The last couple of weeks, I’ve carved out some time to start cleaning up (ha!) the piles of papers and folders around here. Part of it is the usual housekeeping. But part of it is the annual preparation for the upcoming tax season. I always try to do this, because after seven or so years, you theoretically do not need to keep certain documents. So I always use the post-Christmas downtime to start weeding out reams of paper that I no longer need to keep.

Well, in the process, I also decided to (slowly!) clear out little corners in my deskspace, and upon dumping out the contents of one drawer, I found something I didn’t expect to see: my old Wyndtell pager.

At that moment, I felt like an archaeologist, sifting through the layers of a lost civilization. A Wyndtell pager! A hard clamshell of a communication device, with a seemingly large keyboard! Black and white screen! I marveled at it, then showed my walking partner. She too was incredulous.

We gazed for a while at our find, pondering in our mind just how rapidly wireless communications have developed within the last few years, and savoring our own memories of the days when we proudly touted our very own pagers. Now, just like our hearing brethren, we too were captives to a mobile device!

“It’s a good thing I’m cleaning stuff out,” I remarked. “Just imagine if I’d kept this much longer.”

We nodded sagely in agreement. We were now faced with a choice: keep it hidden in a corner, and someday donate it to a museum, or do the wise, environmental thing, and cart it off to the local recycler.

Too bad there’s no deposit on a pager. I get a nickel or dime for each beverage container I bring back. This time, all I got was a nod of the head and grunt. Oh, well. Adieu, Wyndtell.