Semper Fi

By Richie

I was reading the paper other day and had occasion to look at the Sunspots Column. Some moron had written in whining and crying about how Sunspots hadn’t answered their question. Knowing that the editor of the Sunspots column just sits around doing a whole lot of nothing, playing FreeCell, eating chocolates, and surfing the internet; I expected the errant item in question to be “Dear Sunspots, how do I bring about world peace” or “Dear Sunspots, how can I end world hunger.” You know, something important and earth shattering.

Well, I read on and I see that the syphilitic moron wanted the phone numbers for the various local TV stations. My sympathy went out to the Sunspots editor. I mean, these morons are soooo lazy they can’t even be bothered to pick up a phone book and look it up themselves. And when their question got the attention it deserved (none!) they berated Sunspots for that. That brought to mind some of the stupid stuff people call Police Despatchers for.

I had the opportunity serve as Radio-Telephone Operator for about 3 years. Way back in the ancient days we had a manually operated switchboard like what they used during WW-II. We had five lines; and each line had 5 settings, plus additional switches for other unknown mystery functions. You had to be careful with switches since moving even one of them to the wrong positions could cause you a lot of grief. One time I made the mistake of accidentally cutting off the Chief. He was from the old school and it took him about one second to teleport to a position just a few inches away from me. He invaded my personal space ! He commented at length on my parents, or lack of same! He commented about my IQ! He made a number of comments that I just can’t repeat! When he left, I had to stand and check myself & see if I had any butt left after a world-class ass chewing.

Most calls to the Police are relatively normal. Reports of a fire, or a car crash; a street disturbance, what ever. Sometimes they’re a bit unusual; like a person reporting criminal mischief to his business, and there’s all sorts of red paint all over the floor. It was later determined to have been the scene of a homicide. Fortunately I only disptached the call, but I still was interviewed by Detectives investigating the matter. But every now and again, there are calls or walk-in complainants for which there is little explanation. I remember one fellow who kept haunting the front window. He was complaining he could hear people talking on the phone in his head. He wanted the Police to make them stop. I told him how to make a tin-foil helmet to block the signals. Seems to have worked, he didn’t come back. Can’t do that now days; instead we’d be calling those people and tell them to stop bothering the complainant.

Then there were the calls in the winter asking if there was school today You wouldn’t mind if only one or two called, but by the time the 20th or so had called, I had had enough.

“Gee lady, I dunno; this is the Police Department. You might wanna call the School Department. Or, maybe you wanna listen to the radio or watch the TV. Thanks for calling.” Stupid people! Or, then there were the idiots asking “when does the parade start”, and foolishness like that. People might call asking where something was, in Lewiston. That was OK, there weren’t a lot of them, and they were polite. But then people would call asking how to get to someplace out of state. Now, this was before Google and MapQuest. I mean, WTF, are we AAA or something?

Then there was the woman calling to complain about teenagers. She wanted me to send an Officer right away; they were out there on the corner “hanging around”. Now, this is about 6 in the evening, on a warm summer night. Are they doing anything besides hanging around; I mean, like fighting or something? “No, they’re talking, and . . . hanging around.” (I can picture her peeking out between closed curtains) Well, I’m not sending anyone for that, I tell her. “Well, they’re playing their music too loud! Nope, still not gonna send a cop to harass them. (This is back before boom-boxes and (c)rap music) “Well . . . they’re doing drugs! Ya, they’re doing drugs out there!” Notice how she kept looking for the right button to push? Yup, this is an Idiot Call of quality! I finally send a car by there to check on things, just to get her off the phone; the Officer radios in that the teens were gone by the time he arrived. Stupid people.

So they still get calls like this today? I asked the current group of dispatchers.

Oh yes, they get it all, and more. There’s a Jay Leno video floating around demonstrating the sorts of stupid calls Dispatchers get.

So yes, I feel sorry for the Sunspots Editor. What I’d love to see her respond is: “No, fart breath, we didn’t get your stupid letter, and if we did we’d have thrown it out. Go learn how to use a phone book, you mental defective.”

Idiots, ya gotta love ‘em.