There comes a time in every young man's life when he starts to notice girls. This time in my life coincided with the first noticeable push for everyone to have a telephone in their hand at all times. And once we had ours, we were cool and exciting. About this, there can be no doubt. We were at the tail end of going for bike rides, just before the standing around in the park phase, and it was customary that when someone came across a girl's phone number, no matter wherefrom it had come, he was to share it with the rest of the gang and the lot of us would begin texting the poor dame endlessly. To what end, nobody had considered. We just texted until the credit ran out.

One day, our dear friend John stumbled upon the number of a girl named Dot. It was agreed unanimously that this was an old-person name. We chuckled on this and then we began texting. Excitingly for all of us, Dot was a chatty chica, and she seemed to have unlimited credit, sustaining conversations with all six of us simultaneously and without any sign of fatigue. For weeks, we texted Dot and Dot would text back moments later. It was great. Every time someone's message tone sounded, the rest of us would watch and someone would ask if it was Dot. And it usually was. And we'd all laugh about it.

Dot's messages always ended with wb - something I was told was short for "write back". As if she'd needed to tell us. She was apparently a girl - of course we were going to write back.

As the days passed, the novelty remained, at least for some time, and the term "wb" (pronounced 'wuhbuh') became synonymous with all message tones. Every time one went off, someone would say 'wb'. It never ceased to amuse. But then, just like that, Dot disappeared. Never to be heard from again. There was speculation about a lofty phone bill, the possibility that she'd been grounded with no phone, and even the surprisingly-commonplace 'What if she died?' came up once or twice. But all I know is Dot was out of action.

Time has rolled on a good 25 years since then, but just occasionally, purely for the love of antiques, I pull out 'wb' and dust it off when messaging the lads, and it still gets a giggle. You gotta love innocent humor.