Did you ever speak pager lingo? (And how did you know if you were getting it right?)

The other day a friend of mine put this picture up on facebook, asking what the "143" on the candy hearts meant.  A few people responded by saying it's pager/beeper code for "I love you," which is one letter, four letters, three letters.

Several thoughts come to mind: Was pager language a real thing?  How did it become universally known?  For example, 143 could also just as easily mean "I miss you."  Or even "I hate you."  Or "A good day" or "A $#*^ day."  Or something totally random like "A blue car."  There seems to be a pretty large margin for error.

But more importantly, were pagers really that mainstream of a thing?  I never owned one.  Nobody I ever associated with on a regular basis owned one either.  I'm not denying that I lived in somewhat of a sheltered bubble during the height of the pager boom in the 1990s--but in my experience, the only people who had them were doctors in real life, and drug dealers from movies and television.

Speaking of that, here's one more thing 143 could stand for: "I need pot."  Let me know about your pager knowledge in the poll below:

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