It was just an average day at my house. Nothing out of the ordinary.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! “POLICE!”
Police? Well, let’s see… my husband’s a policeman. Maybe he invited some friends for an afternoon snack. I started making my way to the front door when the telephone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hello, this is 911 emergency. We just had a phone call from this location. Your name, please?”
“Uh… I think it’s Kristyn Crow… but…”
“What’s your emergency?”
Hmmmm. I searched my brain files. I could talk about the fact that our new refrigerator was spewing out something other than ice, or maybe that my husband’s 240-gallon aquarium had sprung a leak. I could talk about the woes of a few of my kids and their current medical concerns, or mention that somebody at the junior high school had mistakenly given my autistic son an “F.” Nah. Fortunately, right now there was nothing earth-shattering going on.
“Errrr….emergency?”
“We’ve got two police officers posted outside your door. Will you let them in please?”
I opened the door. Two guys in blue were there, all right.
“I’m sorry, officers. I have no idea what this is about. I’ve been sitting right beside my phone for the last hour. Everything’s fine here. We didn’t call 911. There’s obviously been a mistake.”
“No, ma’am. Somebody called 911 from this location.”
Now I had both the guy on the phone and the police officers at the door competing for my attention. “Ma’am? Ma’am? Are you there?”
“Sorry, I’m talking to the police officers at the door,” I told the caller.
The cops looked a bit annoyed. “I’m talking to the 911 guy,” I told them. Then I remembered something. When the police arrive, 911 always instructs you to hang up the phone. So I did.
Immediately, I heard a static sound from the radio on the first cop’s belt. “She just hung up on me!” It crackled.
My telephone rang again. “Excuse me again, officers. Ah-hem. Hello?”
“This is 911 dispatch. What’s your emergency?”
Hooo-boy.
The first cop spoke again. “Ma’am, is that your son over there?” That’s when I looked over and saw Kyle crouched on the front porch, still wearing his backpack, plugging his ears. Apparently he had seen the police at the door when he got off the school bus. In the past, his brothers would sometimes playfully tease, “Oh no, we’ll have to call the police!” And Kyle would respond with wails of protest. I assumed he was now fearful that they had actually followed-through. “Kyle, it’s okay,” I said. “Don’t be afraid.” I’m sure his crouching and ear-plugging looked a bit suspicious to the men in blue. “He’s autistic,” I explained. At least I could be certain that Kyle wasn’t our 911-caller.
I told the officers I had no idea who, if anyone, had called 911. My three-year-old daughter had been playing with dolls on the carpet. My eight-year-old was busily showing friends his new video game. My older children had just returned from practices and after-school activities. But I apologized. When I told them my name, one said, “Wait… I think I know your husband from the police academy.” I called my husband to the door, and the three cops slapped backs and had a good chat.
After the police left and enough of my children were in visual range, I gathered them together. “Did somebody dial 911?”
Blank looks.
“We just had two police officers at our door because somebody dialed 911.”
My kids were thinking, police officers? Wooooooooooo. Who cares. We live with one. But suddenly one of my kids confessed that in the past, they had played a 911 hang-up game. The game goes like this: You dial 911, and then–before the call connects–you immediately hang up. Oh man, the thrill of it. Of course, nobody had played that game in many years, they promised. Decades even.
“If anybody plays that 911 hang-up game again, I’ll…well, let’s just say there really WILL be an emergency,” I said sarcastically.
Blank looks, and then a few kids tried to hide their smirks. “It better not happen again,” I said.
I took a deep breath, and we all went back to our rather boring, ordinary day.
CRASH!
Kristyn Crow is the author of this blog. Visit her website by clicking here. Some links on this blog may have been generated by outside sources are not necessarily endorsed by Kristyn Crow.