My father asked if I wanted this old thing. Taking it into my hand and feeling its plastic shell and familiar shape, powerful memories of working retail flooded back all at once. I remember standing in the wall aisle by the goldfish and fiddling around with the rotating camera. We didn't call them "selfies" back then. Hell, we really didn't take many photos on our phones at all. The megapixel count was so minuscule, you'd hardly get anything worth seeing twice on that little screen, and this was years before smartphones dominated the market.

However, I thought there might be something from my past left forgotten in the recesses of the memory card. I took to eBay to get a new special charge cord (remember proprietary technology?), plugged it in, and it flickered to life with that familiar, dim Verizon logo.

The anticipation was killing me. What would I see on the home screen? Would I remember the OS? Would I have any videos on it? Do I even remember making any videos on it? Was this the phone I used as my MP3 player for a little while? Was that kick ass Splinter Cell game I used to play on the toilet still lurking in the games folder?

Who would be in my latest text messages? Oh man, I cannot wait to see who I was talking to back then.

As it concluded its warm-up, my eyes widened, my heart rate climbed, and I picked it up in both of my hands, drawing it closer to my face. Intent not to miss a single moment, I focused on the scratched up, tiny little LCD knowing in the next second I would be reacquainted with something familiar from my past. It flashed to the home screen—an image of a dog I didn't recognize with the words "I love Reece" in the custom text placeholder.

I'd forgotten that my sister must've gotten the phone after me...