LOL!

I was prepared to make some predictions and make you read my opinions on this season of Dancing With The Stars. Because of my sleeping schedule, I don't get to watch the show until the next day and sometimes not even until Wednesday and that's a day after the results show. You've been spared.

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Had a very boring first night off, but it was a night off so it was still great, and an exceptional 2nd night off. Long time friends are the best because there's a reason they are long time friends. And it never matters what you do or don't do. Sometimes just a hug can go a very long way, especially for someone who spends the majority of her time touchless. It's the one thing I can really say I miss since I've been living alone. One quickly learns how not to take certain things for granted. But then I get PMS again and I'm thankful for the solitude.

***
Crazy Lady from work called 911 this morning. It was a transfer from Tarrant County dispatch. One of my officers had told me earlier in the shift that he had gone over to talk to her about her neighbor cutting her. She had a small band-aid on her finger. Anyway... that's what she was calling about... again.

When a person dials 911 from a cell phone, that call can end up pretty much anywhere. With the cell phone being in almost every household in America, the majority of our 911 calls are now coming from cell phones. It can be a dispatcher's worst nightmare, but I am also very well aware that because of cell phones, lots of people have been able to get help where as in my younger days, this would not have been a possibility. I suppose most of my frustration comes from the people who call 911 from a cell phone and just assume that a big magic map pops up with a stick pin indicating where their exact location is. Weeeeeeeellll... it don't work that way.

I have to admit... Tarrant County 911 has come a long way from where it once was. When cell phones first started using 911, you wouldn't even get a phone number to come up. Now, we can narrow some cell phones down to within a few blocks of where the call is coming from, but still... if someone is getting beat up... or worse... we prefer to get there as quickly as possible and if we have to search for a crime, chances are the bad guy is going to get away and we don't like it when the bad guy gets away.

Crazy Lady once called 911 for something ridiculous, as are most of her continuous calls to us, and it was during a time when I was getting slammed with real calls. That was the moment that I stopped being nice to her. I jumped all over her and I'm almost positive there was some yelling involved. After that little episode, it was a long while before she tried the 911 thing again. It was also a transfer, but that one was from Fort Worth dispatch.

I get lots of cell phone 911 calls for Fort Worth that I have to transfer. Being in the police business, it's a required job skill that you be curious. So if nothing is going on when I get one of these calls, when I transfer the call I don't disconnect and I listen to see what's up. I'll mute my side and just listen in. This is how I learned that I would never want to be a Fort Worth Police Department dispatcher. I know I am not the only dispatcher that does this because when you get a transfered call you can hear them disconnect. Sometimes it comes after they have listened to what the call is about and realize its boring and lose interest. Needless to say, I'm very conscious of that click.

When I got the transfered call from Crazy Lady from Fort Worth a good while back, I was not nice at all. I stressed the importance that she not call 911 unless it was a real emergency and suggested she go read the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. I realized after my tirade to Crazy Lady that I never heard that familiar click. That they had heard how I had talked to Crazy Lady. And I laughed out loud wondering what they must think of that department's dispatcher. It still makes me laugh out loud.

Last night I wasn't mean, but I was quite short with her and when I asked her if an officer had already talked to her about the attempted murder, she admittedly named the exact officer who had told me about it earlier in the shift. "Click" Needless to say... I didn't hear the other dispatcher ever disconnect.

I love my job. LOL!