"There's a fire in the tunnel"

I love these calls.

We have this elderly resident who calls multiple times daily at alllllllll different times of the day to report stuff that really doesn't exist - to normal people.

First call - phone rings, her name comes up on Caller ID so I'm ready for a good bullshit call. There's nobody there. I can here her walking around, though. She does this quite often. I hang up and ignore it.

Second call - later in the night. All 4 guys on the road out at a disturbance call. Around midnight, maybe. Somebody told her to call the police because there's a fire in the tunnel at (insert address here). Then she hangs up. I told the Sgt and he got one of the guys from the disturbance call to break free. I didn't dispatch fire - I figured it's a small town. If there really was a fire, I'd have more calls on it... and besides, the cop would be there in a minute anyway. There was no fire. The resident at the address the caller gave has no idea of any tunnels. Fine. Clear - unfounded.

Third and final call - about 1:45 AM. Caller states there's a group of people on the street near her house trying to sell her house. She's got this whole story about how her house is listed for sale (which it's not) and continues to ramble the whole thing. She also stated, at some point in this mess of complete BS, that they should just lock him up, he's crazy. I'm just thinking to myself "haha, you say HE'S crazy?!" So I send one of the guys out on that one to talk to the caller and her family members that she lives with. Two of the other ones call out on the radio as if they were responding to a structure fire... "RECEIVED, SELLING HOUSE, ENROUTE!" They were just joking, of course, but I almost fell on the floor from laughing so hard... and I was still laughing at the fact that she said this person who's in the middle of the street is crazy.

So the one cop arrives with the Sgt (who's not happy about a THIRD call in one shift) and they said there's nobody in the streets. They go to talk to the caller (and her family) to figure out the situation. Her family members probably yelled at her a bit and must have unplugged her phone or something. Maybe they handed her one of those Barbie phones that talks to the person playing with it. Either way, she didn't call back the rest of the shift.

It's just rather entertaining sometimes. I guess it's better than the guy who calls to complain about STUPID shit like the ashes falling on his property.

Until next time,

I'll be putting out the fire in the tunnel...

Dispatcher 6