Okay, we all know how much having this cancer sucks. It's been a torrential rain here (3 inches) and suddenly my wife who is sitting in the dining room has a bright light shone into her eyes. She looks up and there is a policeman standing in the rain outside our house shining a flashlight thru the bay window and gesticulating wildly for her to come to the door. She called me instead from downstairs where I was on the computer.
The officer insists that there was a call to 911 from our phone number and that we hung up and they were not able to contact us. He wanted to come in and was very surprised and suspicious when I said firmly: [quote]Not without a warrant.[/quote]
[quote]What are you hiding or protecting?[/quote] he asked. [quote]The Bill of Rights and our constitution which you swore to uphold[/quote] I replied.
Well, it's an emergency he said. I asked when the call was, he replied 2:30. That's 40 minutes ago, some emergency I noted. If it had been a crime, I'd be dead.
I sent him on his way and did a Google search. Turns out that it's extremely common for Verizon land lines to call 911 in the rain if there's a short in the line to your house because of squirrels or cable work on the pole.
Verizon of course insists the problem is not theirs, both on the web site after an automated network check and on the phone voice mail hell. In one week they would send out someone to see what's what.
So I double check and it turns out there is a medical priority for oral cancer patients. You need to say the magic words: "Agent" to the voice response unit and a real live person comes on, verifies you are a cancer patient and a repair man will be out tomorrow. Finally a bright side to having cancer.
Charm