It wasn't until the two-ways that I even kind of wanted one. I remember being at the mall with a group of kids and one of the girls got paged by her mom and we had to go around to find a pay phone for her to check in and I recall thinking 'well that's stupid, I just check in when I get somewhere and when I leave, she's just carrying an annoying reminder to go find a payphone'

Once kids started sending little messages with them, I wanted one. Then they had fun colors and transparent cases. Luckily my nokia brick phone was just a few years away, half a life-time then, but just a few years in hindsight. ;)

None of my friends at that time were drug dealers, but they liked to joke they were because of the stigma.