Sunday, April 25, 2010

Unfortunate milestone

Yesterday the kids were playing in the living room, and suddenly The Engineer and I heard the sound of a voice coming out of a cell phone. We looked at each other, confused.

Chickie ran up to me with my cell phone in her hand, and sheepishly handed it to me.

"Hello?" I said.

I was greeted with, "This is 9-1-1. What is your emergency?"

"Well," I said with chagrin, "I think we just hit a milestone--the first time my kids have accidentally called 9-1-1."

Thankfully, instead of berating me for joking about something that really is serious, the dispatcher laughed. "Well, congratulations on that milestone," she said. "So everything is okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine," I assured her. Then, in a sincere tone, I added, "I'm really sorry."

"That's okay," she said. "I'm just glad you're fine."

I said goodbye so that the dispatcher could deal with real problems. (Problems bigger than children who navigate the technical world far too easily.)

11 comments:

Eternal Lizdom said...

Oh no!!! That's one I hope we don't hit!! Ack!

Lara said...

Oh no! We haven't hit that one yet - Cade did have a long conversation with the A/C repairman when he called for directions though.

beckiwithani said...

We hit a similar one several months ago. The first hitting-the-train's-emergency-intercom-button experience. The driver of the moving train was not amused. Oh well!

Unknown said...

As my son would say, uh oh! At least it was a kind operator who was understanding. Kids do that sometimes.

Toni said...

Yes, my son did that around Christmas time and we heard him on the cell and the operator asking him if Santa brought him anything. I'm glad we got an understanding operator!

Call Me Cate said...

Yikes. I'm glad the person on the other end was patient and kind. And I'm sure Chickie learned some valuable information about dialing 911.

Janell said...

That happened to a friend of mine a year or so ago. Only, police officers actually CAME to her house about twenty minutes later "just to make sure" everything was ok. Yikes!

Unknown said...

That is a stinky milestone!! I'm glad they took it well though!

SurvivorBlessing said...

I wonder how she managed to dial it? Is it programmed in your phone? Does she know about 911???
I don't ever wanna do that - I wouldn't know what to say....
I am so glad that the voice was a friendly one! Poor you!

Lola said...

Happens to the best of us- I actually butt-dialed 911 once...no joke. The even crazier part? they called me BACK to make sure I was ok! (I was)

911 gets a bad rap most of the time, but they are on it!

Tiffany said...

This happened to our next door neighbors this weekend. The police actually showed up to the house. But yeah...at least you know Chickie could dial 911 in an emergency.