The Friends who Never Call Back

I remember when 911 first came out. They had posters all over Landolt Elementary School. It sounds so normal now but back then, we had to practice it over and over again to remember it. I guess it worked. Because I use it a lot:

--There was the time my car got stuck in the ice on a day like today. It was early in the morning and I was driving from my apartment to the gym. I swerved, I spun and then I stopped. I ran up to my apartment and called Frank. He lived about 20 minutes away so he just said, “Go try and push it!” I guess since I was on my way to the gym he thought I had super-human strength. So I did. But it didn’t move. Soon after, a car carrying a couple of other girls, also en route to the gym, got stuck. They were dressed really cute like they were just going to the gym to stand around and pose. They immediately made phone calls and announced that several men were coming to help. “Great! My boyfriend just told me to come push it,” I said, pointing to my apartment. I guess they thought he was actually in the apartment and that I had the meanest boyfriend ever. Their men showed up and moved their car. The thing is, they didn’t even bother to move mine! They just all left—probably to go do some pretty-person activity like drink Starbucks.

So I called 9-1-1. They said, “We have about a thousand other cars to get to before yours. I suggest you leave it.”

--Another time I called because my apartment was on fire. Okay, it was one of those oven fires where there’s a crumb on the bottom so when you cook pizza it sparks up. I was screaming on the phone to 9-1-1 when Frank walked in. He put it out and I had to tell my 9-1-1 friends, “Nevermind.”

--I used to run in a neighborhood in the mornings and one day I saw this house with a blinking light. I mean like the lights in one room were blinking on and off, on and off—very deliberately and very consistently. Hello? I was a girl scout! I know what that means! S.O.S.! I don’t know what it stands for but it means someone’s in trouble. Natch, I called 9-1-1 when I got home. They said they’d go check it out. But every day after that I saw the same thing. Guess it was their alarm clock? Not a bad idea…

--I’ve called several times for things I’ve seen on the road—accidents, suspicious people. One time in Austin I saw a lady crossing the bridge of a major highway because her car had stalled about a half mile back. I didn’t want to stop and help her but I thought maybe my 9-1-1 friends would. I called them and this time they asked for my number in case they had any questions. I was going to a Christmas party but I kept my phone by me all night, explaining to everyone that I was an important witness in a police investigation and I could be called away at any minute. But they never called.

Now I know you’re thinking that I should be calling 3-1-1 in some of these cases and I have—for debris in the road and things like that. But they take forever to answer. I’d have better luck calling MedCo!

--I once struggled with whether or not to call my pals at 9-1-1. I was running outside (you see a lot of things when you’re running) and I saw a very normal looking man standing outside a very normal looking restaurant. The only abnormal thing was that his pants were down around his ankles. I won’t describe what else he was doing (for Grandma Valerie’s sake) but I don’t think he should have been doing that. When I got back to my apartment (after running really, really fast—not sure why. It’s not like he could chase me with his pants around his ankles) I called all my friends and told them the story. Later I decided maybe I should put in a call to my friends at 9-1-1, just in case. So I dialed that familiar number and when I told them the story they said, “Hey! Why didn’t you call us sooner?”