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Many very good reasons not to call 911

By   /   August 23, 2013  /   No Comments

It is assumed that most people know what the intent for 911 is: it is for emergencies only. Problem being, of course, that an emergency has a bit of an open definition to it, meaning that different people consider different things to be emergencies. For instance, earlier today I was trying to look underneath my desk and misjudged where the surface of my desk was, so I slammed my forehead directly into the top of my desk in a way you usually only ever see in a Mr. Bean film. Did I consider that to be an emergency? Not really. Did I think about calling 911? Not at all. I didn’t bleed profusely or pass out or cause any kind of damage that I could tell, though I did have an awkward moment of looking around my office, checking to see if . So why do I mention it? I’m not really sure. I’m still kind of dizzy.

Anyway, so it was this last Sunday in the fair berg of Fairfield, Connecticut that local residents were watching the latest episode of “Breaking Bad,” which some of you may know as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, and the rest of you know as that show that isn’t 2 Broke Girls, so why is it on my television set when I could be watching 2 Broke Girls instead? To those people, please go away now. For the rest of you, on with our story. The citizens of Fairfield, Connecticut were watching the latest episode of Breaking Bad when suddenly, without explanation, their cable cut out. An emergency! You can kind of see where this is going, right?

Yup, 911 operators in Fairfield were flooded with calls from viewers trying to figure out what happened to their cable, and when would it be back up, and is Walter going to die? He’s going to have to die, isn’t he? Wouldn’t it be weird if he didn’t, and everyone else did? What a twist that would be. Anyway, the Fairfield police department was not amused, as evidenced by a post put up onto the Fairfield Police Department’s Facebook page (since deleted) that said “We are receiving numerous calls regarding the Cablevision outage. This is neither an emergency or a police related concern. Please direct your inquiries to Cablevision.” Which is great and all, but come on. Can you tell me off hand what the phone number is for Cablevision’s customer service division? Is it just three numbers? I’m guessing not.

But believe it or not, misuse of 911 isn’t just isolated to desperate television viewers not wanting to miss a single second of the final season of probably the best TV series on the air right now. There are also other way more ridiculous and less justifiable reasons that people are calling 911 about, such as Jeanie Dufresne, a woman in New Hampshire who was recently arrested for calling 911 when she needed a pen. No, you don’t need to go back and read that last sentence over again. I will repeat it. She called 911 because she needed a pen. Here’s the response she got back from the operator:

“You want a pen? You dialed 911 because you want a pen? What makes this an emergency, Jeanie? You do realize that it’s definitely not an emergency. You’re dialing 911, you are tying up a 911 line, so you’re tying up people who actually have emergencies because you need a pen.”

Well, when you put it that way, you make the whole thing sound kind of ridiculous.

Jeanie, by the way, was not arrested just because she called 911 because she needed a pen, because I assume she believed the people of 911 are magical wish-granting genies who can make pens appear in people’s hands. No, Jeannie was arrested because she did that in addition to calling 911 for other, just as stupid reasons 10 times in the previous month. Because getting up off of the couch to get things like food and using the bathroom is really inconvenient. But calling 911, that is super convenient. Try it and see for yourself how easy it is. (Note: DO NOT try it and see for yourself how easy it is. You will be arrested. Are you not paying attention?)

And then there was also the case from a few years ago, when Latreasa Goodman of Ft. Pierce, Florida called 911 three times because McDonalds ran out of Chicken McNuggets. Oddly, in that case, when Latreasa made her 911 call and the police came to McDonalds about her emergency, they arrested her and not Ronald McDonald for his crime of not having prepared an adequate amount of chicken nuggets for the day’s demands. Go figure.

“When you feel that you’ve been mistreated or misused or robbed out of your money, you have the right to call 911,” Latreasa said. “That’s the purpose of 911, so I thought.” That is not at all the purpose of 911, it should be noted.

Truth be told, there are a great many reasons not call 911, most of them involving you not actively dying at the time. So as a public service, I am here to tell you today that the thing that’s happening to you right now, please don’t call 911 about it. I don’t know what it is, but I’m almost positive that 911 is not what you should be doing. There is a pen somewhere in your house. They will make more Chicken McNuggets. Breaking Bad will be rerun again sometime later this week. I urge you, please, do not call 911 right now.

Oh, you’re choking? Well, that’s different. You should totally call 911 about that.

Bismarck resident Erik Hagen is the author of the SodBlog and would totally give you the Heimlich Maneuver right now if that was an option, which it isn’t, because why are you even reading this right now while you’re choking? Get help, for God’s sake. Send emails to sodblog@me.com or visit his website at sodblog.com.

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  • Published: 1 year ago on August 23, 2013
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  • Last Modified: August 26, 2013 @ 10:52 am
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I came into this world naked, covered in blood and slightly hysterical. Very little has changed since.

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