If you use a nice INT to store the message_id, that is 4_294_967_296 messages till you run out of IDs. If you use a bigger INT, like the 8 byte int, that is 18_446_744_073_709_551_616 messages.

Let's to a little math:

IDs/sec	2**32 runout	2**64 runout
1	136 years	584 billion years
10	13.6 years	58.4 billion years
100	1.36 years	5.84 billion years
Honestly, INT is fine for chatterbox! =)

--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)