For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Wikipedia’s definition of …

"[a] Bleg is a colloquial term for a blog entry consisting of a request to the readers, such as for information or contributions. The name is derived from the words ‘Blog’ and ‘Beg’."

Yesterday I unexpectedly discovered that in an America where seemingly every family has one or more cell phones (including the Benzion household), pagers are almost extinct.

True, you can hardly enter a restaurant these days without being handed one– no doubt in the hope that its blinking red lights and the imminent expectation of vibration will provide sufficient mental distraction for you and your party while waiting to be seated.

And both doctors and EMS personnel still use pagers, since they spend significant time inside buildings with lots of equipment where cell phone usage is either prohibited or signals are too weak to penetrate.

But apparently that pretty much leaves drug dealers trying to avoid police wire-taps and illegal immigrants fearful of a sudden INS job-site raid to fill out the remaining potential market for pagers.

Which must explain why the only two locations for paging services I have been able to track down have been:

1. A seedy used electronics outlet in a chaotic industrial park; AND
2. The "Little Mexico" front kiosk section of my local Fiesta.

I wasn’t too pleased with my choices at either outlet.

All I am trying to accomplish is to be alerted, via pager, whenever a voice mail has been left on my pager’s account. General Houston-metro coverage is desired, but North side (including The Woodlands and Kingwood) are critical. Ideally the pager wouldn’t be butt-ugly, but looks are far, far down the list of priorities. It just needs to be cheap, reliable, and ideally run by a company that more frequently supplies the doctors and EMS staff rather than the drug dealers and illegals.

Did I mention that cheap is good?

Please send all tips/suggestions to my attention at lsteditors@gmail.com. Owners of paging outlets are invited to tempt LST’s unimpeachable reputation for journalistic integrity by offering a deal in exchange for a mention and link in this post.

UPDATED 10:11 PM– Thanks to all who’ve written in. For what it is worth, the most common suggestions I’m getting are Arch, SkyTel, and MetroCall. If anyone has a different thought, feel free to share it; otherwise, I think I pretty much know that I need to choose from among these.

Meanwhile, the ever helpful Kevin Taylor adds:

The vagueness of your description of the need for a pager only arouses greater suspicion that your purpose is to either promote illegal entry into the country or facilitate the sale of illegal substances. You’ve got to be more specific about your “needs". Otherwise, consider a wireless PDA……but the appearance of legitimacy will cost you. Or, you could make the case to Dapper Dan that all LST staffers need a business pager.

Keep in mind, Kevin, that "Dapper Dan" is so cheap admirably cost-conscious that the image on KSEV’s call-screening monitor still reflects that of a … how shall we say it …. "station down the dial".

And no, I will not be more specific about my "needs", other than to say that it does not involve drugs or the illegal entry of people across our borders.