Things to call 911 for

There needs to be standardized list of reasons to call for emergency response, though since nobody is willing to pursue charges related to abuse of 911 (crank callers and their sort) I suppose no such list will ever be formalized.

Thankfully we have this blog, which is wholly informal and absolutely steadfast in its refusal to name names or departments.

Reason to call 911:

I have been stabbed/shot/beheaded/disembodied/otherwise mangled - That's cool, it'd be fun to see that and then compare various brands of spaghetti sauce to different body parts and their oozes.

I am in the process of being beaten - This does not apply if you are a child in severe need of discipline.

I have just been robbed - Please make sure you call immediately after being robbed. If you call during the robbery, I'm going to be skeptical that an armed robber is allowing you to make this phone call. If you wait a half hour before calling then I'm going to assume that this isn't particularly important to you and take it just as seriously. Note, I am willing to be flexible if your phone was stolen and it took a minute to find a payphone to call from. I just want to catch the guy leaving the scene, and for that I need no more than a few minutes between robbery and phone call.

There is someone in my house/business/shed/water heater - These are fun calls. It's hide and seek with AR-15s and shotguns. And I sometimes get to call out the dog. Fuzzy monsters are amazing at hide and seek.

Not a reason to call 911:

There is (insert local wildlife here) nearby - Unless it is actually chewing on you (see "otherwise mangled" above) I don't care. The local fauna is probably very exciting to the local Boy Scout Troop, but I have a job and things to do before I can go home at the end of the day.

Road Rage - I don't know that it's ever possible to actually find these calls as, by their nature, the call itself is constantly moving and cardinal directions are a mythical construct to most modern people. "We're going left on such and such street now!" means nothing because most streets (all of them where I work) are TWO WAY STREETS!! There are two lefts! Also, if someone is giving you the finger on the road, chalk it up to their freedom to express themselves and just move along with your day. I'm sure you have things to do too.

I just saw a man carrying what may or may not have been a gun - I can tell he didn't point it at you, because your brain would have gone into "Oh Shit" mode and very quickly figured out if that's a gun or a broom handle. And if he didn't shoot it, or otherwise commit any crime with it, I don't care. There are probably more guns than people in this state, and you have to get those things from your car to your house somehow. Telling me that this person may have gotten in trouble for firing pellet guns previously doesn't help me, especially since I've had to take over for pest control at my own apartment and use a pellet gun to down the pigeons around here.

I'm sure there are far more calls, but I have things to do, even now at 1:22 AM. Leave a comment with your own stupid reason for calling 911. "I found a dead body" doesn't count, unless you're narrated by Morgan Freeman and are a Stephen King novel.