I can't live, if living is without you...

The other night I had a guy call 911 to ask a question. He wanted to know if he could get arrested for driving on a suspended license, even if he was driving his baby mama to the hospital.

Um. Yes. So glad I could be of help. Please call back anytime you have a question. We're here 24 hours a day.

So many people think 911 is kind of a free, instant information bank. They call with all kinds of the stupidest questions you've ever heard. Here's just a few I've taken, personally.

1. Who won the football game? This guy was stuck in a dentist office waiting room with no TV and had to know who won. I do not make this stuff up, folks. I don't have to.

2. How do I get a possum out of my kitchen?

3. What time is it? We get this one a lot. People mistake us for that free service you used to be able to call that would say "At the tone, the time will be 3:55 pm...beep." Apparently that service no longer exists. But really? There are clocks everywhere! You mean to tell me you are not anywhere near a car, cell phone, ipod, computer, or digital bank display? Are you camping in Siberia?

4. A coworker of mine got a call on 911 from a woman asking how long she should cook a 16 pound turkey.

Some general questions we get a lot are questions on parenting (I have no kids. Just because I work at 911, I am not an instant expert on everything. I don't think you want my advice on parenting your teen. I'm of the mindset that spanking cures every child-related problem. Do you really want to call 911 and go there?), questions on custody and divorce (we are not lawyers. If we were, we would not be answering 911. We would be in some cushy non-government office, charging you ungodly amounts of money for the privilege of asking us stupid questions) and laws. Lots of people think we are police officers and know every single state and federal law off the tops of our heads.

Don't call me and ask if it is illegal to transport your dog in a crate on top of your car, or the maximum legal height for headlights on your lifted 1972 Chevy Blazer. I don't know. And I will tell you I don't know. I will even tell you I don't know where to send you to look for the information. Start with google. Its a very good place to start.

It makes me wonder how people survived for so long without 911. It is scary to think that people lack the basic critical thinking skills to search out the answers to life's questions.

Possum in the house? What part of your mind skips over "grab a broom and shoo him out" and zeros right in on "call 911!"? Football game score? Who could I call that might know the answer to that question? Mike? No, Mike is probably busy painting his back deck. I know! 911! Of course.

Welcome to the future...

Last night, a caller from another part of the country told me that I personally am everything that is wrong with the left coast, and that we should all just fall into the ocean and die. That is pretty much a direct quote. Honestly, I had to applaud this guy's creativity. Most people, when frustrated, just call me a fuckin' bitch, and hang up.

So what was he so mad about? Here's the situation. For some reason, he was watching one of those pay sites on the internet that hooks you up to a stranger's webcam, so you can watch live, while they do...whatever. He called to let me know there was a woman in my city who appears to be high on meth. He wanted me to track her down. But did he have her address? Nope, just the city she listed as her home town on her profile.

Great. I had to break it to him. At 911, we're not CSI. I don't care what you've seen on TV, we can't work miracles. Most people think the 911 center looks like the NASA headquarters or some such bullshit. We must have all types of up to date, high tech equipment, capable of locating anyone in the world at a moment's notice, by zeroing in on the distinct frequency of their DNA.

Think about it. When was the last time you were in a government building that was modern and high tech like that? No, admit it. Last time you were in a government building, you noticed a burned popcorn smell, aging plastic chairs (each missing one foot so they shifted and rocked when you sat down), grey walls with peeling paint, that annoying popcorn-y stuff on the ceiling, (inevitably with some kind of water stain in one corner), and florescent lights, one of which flickered incessantly as if its personal goal was to give you a splitting headache. Am I right? Thought so.

The truth is, most government agencies are strapped for cash. At 911, our computers are still running Office 2003 and we don't have internet access. You heard me. No internet. I guess that rules out access to the super secret spy network, too, huh?

Though I did my best to explain why I couldn't track this woman down, my caller kept insisting that they do it on TV all the time. Why couldn't I just give the website information to a detective? Well, he called at 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday. Detectives work in offices, from 9-5 Monday through Friday. If someone is murdered, they can be called in after hours. Even if there was a detective capable of somehow magically tracking down this woman, do you really think anyone is going to approve the overtime to call him in and get him started on the case of some random meth user? Not unless she did her meth, then shoved the syringe down someone else's throat and killed them with it. Not happening. Can you imagine if we did call in a detective for that and the taxpayers got wind of it? Whew, we'd never live that one down.

Plus, there's not anything a detective can do, either. He could try to contact the web site host and get the ISP address of the woman on the other end of the web cam. (I'm sure those types of sites are really forthcoming with this information, too!) He could go to the physical address if he was able to trace one to the ISP address (I have no idea how this part would be done...anyone?). But without a search warrant, he can't get any further than the front door. If for some reason he was able to arrest the woman for possession or some other petty little crime, she'd get booked and released because the jail is too crowded. Then she'd go get high.

But try explaining all this to some guy from the other side of the country, who just knows I'm sitting in a dark room, in front of a brightly lit, wall-to-wall LED screen, focusing my satellite guided x-ray eyes on both him, and the meth lady, yawning, then refusing to help him, just because I can.

Here's a little video of the NASA control room for you. This is the opposite of what 911 is like.

Jenny, don't change your number...

Everyone is so worried about their privacy these days. They don't even want to leave their name and phone number when they call 911. Fifty times per shift I get asked to "be anonymous" by people who can't even pronounce the word.

Usually, people are adamant about being anonymous if they've called about their neighbors doing drugs, or (god forbid!) playing loud music.

The number one reason people give for not wanting to give their names is because "I don't want them to know I'm the one who called!" Ok. I get that. But we don't give out your information. I really don't see why we don't. It would be great job security for us if your neighbor knifes you in retaliation for you calling the police to complain about their off-key warbling karaoke version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart".

(I know I go on and on about noise complaints on 911...but if its this bad, I'll give it to you. Sounds like an emergency to me!)

Even worse than the anonymous folks are the ones who give us a fake name. If you want me to go with it, you're gonna have to be more creative than "Jane Doe". Right. And your phone number is 867-530 niiiiiiiiine...

Rest easy folks. I promise not to call your next door neighbor and spill the beans that you are the reason their meth house got raided. Aside from being incredibly rude, its also illegal for me to share that info. Your name and phone number are only for our records. We don't sell it to telemarketers or use it to hack into your bank account. And if I have a question and have to call you back, it makes it a lot easier if I can ask for you by name. "Hi, I'm calling back from 911. Can I talk to anonymous?" It doesn't really roll off the tongue.

How not to get shot (or tazed or punched) by the police.

1. Don't commit a crime. If the police are never called on you, or never see you doing something illegal, you won't have encounters with police. If you don't come in contact with a police officer, it makes it very hard to get assaulted by a police officer.

2. If you break rule number 1 (see above) and you find yourself confronted by a police officer, there is a very easy way to protect yourself from being assaulted. Ready? Here is the secret: Do what the officer says. It really is that easy. I promise.

Lets take a look at this clip and see if we can tell which rule was broken.

See? She broke rule number 2. She refused to do what the officer said, and got herself punched in the face. Deserved it, too! Now of course, there was a huge uproar because the officer was white and the girl is black, so of course racism must be involved.

I guess no one else could see the part where she was physically struggling with the officer, and refusing to comply. She's lucky she didn't get herself tazed or shot. Or that the officer didn't land a better punch. She'd have been a lot easier to stuff in a patrol car if the officer had knocked her out first.

I'm really tired of criminals whining about police brutality. Even worse if the the criminal is a minority, because then the race card gets played. What are the police supposed to do? "Be gentle with this guy, boys! He's {insert minority race here}. Or better yet, lets just let him go. If we arrest him, people might think we're racist!"

Sorry, doesn't work that way.

I'm special (special!) So special!

Occasionally, when people call 911 for something petty, they start to realize I'm not going to help them. (Hello, noise complaints! Have I yet mentioned on this blog that I really hate when people call 911 to report noise, and that it is NOT an emergency?) People can really take this personally! "Why won't you send officers out?" As if I have the power to choose who does and does not get service.

Let me just clear something up here. If I tell you officers will not be responding to your noise complaint or vehicle prowl or the mysterious case of who dumped their lawn clippings in your trash can, it is not because I don't feel like helping you. Yes, I may be sending you daggers through the phone line or wishing stupidity was painful, but I'm not refusing to help you simply because I don't feel like it.

The police departments we answer calls for decide our policies. I swear. They are the ones who decide they lack the manpower to respond to lost property, vehicle prowls and disputes over yard waste. They write a guideline of what they will and will not respond to, and it is my job to know these guidelines, and follow them.

When you handle as many police departments as we do at 911, this can be a daunting task. Some of our smaller forces serve towns of only a few hundred people. These police departments (damn, I'm tired of typing that out. It will be PDs from here on out.) will respond to any and everything. Kind of like Mayberry. Cat in a tree? Check. Pesky garage door opener not working right? Be right there!

Other PDs serve large cities. We're talking gang, drug, and prostitute infested inner cities. The real deal. These officers respond to gang shootings, drug raids and drivebys on a daily basis. Do you think they give a shit if someone broke into your car to get the iPod you left on the front seat? Not likely. Being exposed to real crime makes them a little jaded. Which rolls downhill to 911 operators. They say they won't go to vehicle prowls? Ok then. No amount of bargaining with me will get you your way. Its not because I'm having a bad day or I don't like you. I really just cannot put in the call. If I take pity on you and put in the call for dispatch, my supervisor will just cancel it, and I'll be reminded to re-read that policy for that PD. It makes more work for me, so no matter how nice you are to me or how much you beg, yell, or fuss, it just ain't happening.

So when you scream and curse at me for "not doing my job!" It is because I am actually, in fact, doing my job. And you're yelling at the wrong person. You don't like the policies? Believe it or not, your 911 operator didn't write them. I'm just the warm body in the chair, who gets paid to listen to you rant. Really want to make some changes? Try your police chief's office. 9-5, Monday through Friday. 911 operators have nothing to do with it. Especially those of us on graveyard!

Say it again for me...

...its like the whole world stops to listen...

Lets talk about an instance when it is ok to witness an emergency and not call 911.

Think about the busiest interstate in your state. Imagine how many cars pass a given point on that road, both directions, day in and day out. Even in the middle of the night, when traffic volumes are at their lowest, thats a whole lotta cars.

Take California for example. On the 580 freeway during peak times, they can see 26,000+ cars per hour. Mind boggling, aint it? So lets say a slow night for them is 5,000 cars per hour. That seems fair, even a little low. 5,000 cars passing mile post 10 every hour. Roughly 83 cars per minute. Well over 1 per second. Now let's say that 3 out of every 5 cars has a cell phone in it. The actual statistic is even higher, I'm sure. Oh no! A car breaks down at mile post 10 and catches on fire. If even half of all the cars carrying cell phone calls 911 that very minute...well, that's roughly 25 or so calls the minute the fire starts.

And then 25 more calls every minute until the fire truck gets there. Wow. I know it doesn't sound like all that much. But in the 4 minutes it takes the fire truck to get there (and that is being generous!), we can rack up 100 calls. At 4 am, even one of the busiest 911 centers in the nation is only staffing two 911 operators. So, yes, you can imagine what happens now. What we are basically doing is this: "911, are you reporting the car fire on I-such and such?" If the caller says yes, we say "Thanks, we've got reports of it." and hang up. Its all we can do. There is no way to keep up with the calls.

What I never understand though, is really, do all 99 of those callers think no one else has already called in? Think how highly visible this incident is, and how prevalent cell phones are these days. Really? You thought you were the only one?!? At 911, we are aware of these things almost before they happen. We are omnipotent. All-seeing. I hate to burst your little hero-bubble but, only one caller can have the fastest fingers and tell us something we don't already know. It will almost never be you. Especially if you're driving by when the car is fully engulfed. Think about it! We got the first call when the little puffs of smoke were still coming out from under the hood. You think it went fully engulfed unnoticed? Thanks for calling 911 and cluing us in on the car thats been on fire for 3 minutes. That's 75 other callers ahead of you!

Just stop for a minute and think. If you're calling 911 about a high profile incident, look around you. Do 50 other people have eyes on the same thing? If so, I promise we already know about it. Please leave the 911 lines clear, someone on the other side of town may have a real emergency. Like a neighbor who is playing loud music.

What if I wanted to break?

Whew! Saturday nights in the summer are statistically our busiest times. We're talking 8 (or 10 or 12) hours of straight dinger, one call after the other, yelling and screaming madness. If you think I don't always need a massage after even the best of these shifts, you're crazy.

To cope, I mentally prepare, get an extra shot in my already large coffee on the way into work, then its hang-on-for-the-ride mode. We're all pretty aware of the pattern and I've come to expect the madhouse and meet it head on, not dread it. I try not to let it stress me out and instead, I pretend I'm Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy, that time she went to work at the chocolate factory. Only with 911 calls. Instead of chocolates. Good thing. Because 911 calls are better for my waistline.

So with a typical summer Saturday night in mind, can I ask the public for a huge favor? Please. I know murders are going to happen. It is sad and tragic and all that*, but unfortunately it is part of the human condition. But please, please, if you have to kill someone, could you pick a different day to do it on? Homicides tie up most of the police department for hours and hours and hours. Imaging having all the officers tied up for hours on a typical Saturday night. Yup, it sucks.

What happens is that when the other emergency calls come in, we've got no one to respond. People end up waiting hours to report that they were raped, or robbed at gunpoint, or beaten and left for dead in a ditch by people they thought were their friends. Which, in the eyes of the public, is ALWAYS my fault. Because I'm not sending the police. Of course, I can't tell my callers that the officers are tied up on a murder across town. I just have to apologize for the delay and say we're very busy. Of course, if you've been raped or beaten bloody, the last thing you want to hear is that we're too busy to respond to you.

So please, general public, a little cooperation? If you absolutely must murder someone, (or take hostages, plant a bomb in a public building, or commit any other crime that would be a huge draw on our already stretched-too-thin resources...) Tuesdays in January, between the hours of 3 am and 7 am are usually free. We'll be able to send a full response of officers to deal with your crime, which makes us more capable of catching you and dealing with you appropriately. Its a WIN-WIN. Thanks.

*I know I sound like a heartless bitch with no regard for human life here. Its a defense mechanism. 911 operators who become emotionally involved in their calls don't last. They burn out very quickly, like a shooting star. Only instead of flaming out due to the incredible speed of re-entry into the atmosphere, those 911 operators flame out due to the enormous pressure of empathizing with the entire world. Its usually pretty ugly. I have to protect myself. If it makes me sound like a bitch, well...such is the price. But if you want to tell me I sound like a bitch, get in line. I'm busy getting that from my 911 callers.