Seen in 702: Behold the pay phone, used for [redacted]

This latest venture into connecting nouns and verbs was going to be a fun look at the latest archaeological find in the Las Vegas area: an active pay phone.

I didn’t know whether to write this like an actual discovery (“What the devil is that device?”) or play the game sweeping the nation: Boomers vs. Millennials.

The idea came out a few weeks ago when I saw the phone on the second floor of the California Hotel and thought it might be a fun way to knock out a few paragraphs.

Like other multimillion-dollar schemes that never see the light of day, I left that thought in the back of my mind. However, heading out to Chicago for the Thanksgiving holiday, I saw a pair of CenturyLink pay phones in Terminal 3 at McCarran International Airport.

“So,” I said to myself, “if I don’t see anything upon my return to Las Vegas for the ‘Seen in 702,’ I will at least have this.”

I returned. I didn’t see anything. So I went to CenturyLink’s website and emailed a request about how many pay phones the company has at the airport and how often they are used.

I received a polite response from Mark Molzen, Global Issues Manager, Transformation, Legal, for CenturyLink, Inc.: “We don’t disclose the number of pay phones we service because that is proprietary information.”

What?

I would understand if I was asking about shell corporations, hidden lawsuits or underworld contacts. It was a question about pay phones! It’s not like CenturyLink doesn’t want people to find out it still has pay phones deployed!

So what say you? When was the last time you saw a pay phone, let alone used one. Send your responses to seenin702@reviewjournal.com. Standard long-distance charges may apply.

Contact Tony Garcia at tgarcia@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307. Follow @TonyGLVNews on Twitter.