911...What's Your Emergency?

I've only had to call 911 three times in my life. The first time was when I was 18 years old and working at a grocery store. We had a "situation" and because I had a phone in the bakery department that was out of sight of the "bad guy" one of my co-workers urgently asked me to call 911. I remember having a very hard time not breaking down as I asked for police help. The 911 Operator was very professional and helped keep me calm until the police arrived and arrested our unwanted visitor.

The second time I called 911 was when my daughters were young. We were pre-heating the oven to bake some cookies--some luscious chocolate chip cookies. Suddenly, we noticed that there was a fire in the oven. No, the cookies were not on fire. There were NO cookies in the oven yet. It was an electric fire where the element was having "issues." I quickly called 911. (I can't say I was any calmer this time than I was the first as I envisioned my house burning down.) I then ran into my bedroom closet and shut off the circuit to the oven. A few minutes later, the fire engine's loud sirens grew closer and closer. Three burly firemen, one with an AX came running into my house. I envisioned them knocking holes in my walls.

"It's a LITTLE fire," I yelled. "Right now it's just in the oven."

Slowly, the fireman lowered his ax. They checked out the oven. They made sure I had correctly turned off the correct circuit. The fire was put out and they advised me to buy a new heating element for the oven.

I thanked them profusely and I was very grateful that there were no new "openings" in my walls.

The third time I called 911 was a few years ago. We had installed a carbon monoxide detector. It suddenly went off.

"Great," I thought. "We are going to die or suffer brain damage!"

"Great," was my second thought, "Emily is going to be late for school."

I grabbed the cordless phone and went outside and called 911. I was a little calmer this time. No bad guys. No fire. Just an odorless gas trying to KILL us! Within a few minutes, the very loud sound of fire engines grew closer and closer. Neighbors came outside to see what the fuss was all about. I waved, a little embarrassed. Three burly firemen rushed into my house and began checking for carbon monoxide. They found no evidence of a problem, but did say that one of my smoke detectors was so old that is was basically useless. They replaced the smoke detector and were on their way. I could not figure out WHY the detector had gone off in the first place. A few days later, I figured it out. Whenever someone in the house used hair spray, the carbon monoxide detector went off. After this happened several times, I threw the detector away. How good could it be if it thought HAIR SPRAY was a deadly gas. A stinky gas, yes? A deadly gas? I hope not!

And those are my experiences calling 911. I'm very happy for the service but I hope I don't have to use it again in a very, very long time!