Making the Call

Long ago, I remember watching a pack of kids congregated around the pay phone at the local park. They were whispering. “I double-dog dare you.” Some brave kid picked up the phone, punched the three numbers. When it started to ring, he slammed it back on the receiver and the pack scattered. Less than five minutes later, the small town’s police and fire departments showed up at the park and everyone present got a hefty lesson in the seriousness of calling 911.

This last weekend, I was house-sitting for my friend Nicole’s and I had quite a scare on Friday night! Around 8:30pm Jake texted me asking if I was up for a late-night venture on Mt. Lemmon with him and Dave. Exhausted though I was, I hadn’t anticipated spending any time with Jake so it was a pleasant surprise to receive his invitation. The three of us bought hot chocolate at a gas station illuminated by fluorescent light and drove up the mountain to gaze at the stars. As you climb higher and get above the lower atmosphere layers, more stars become visible. The sky was stunning! The boys dropped me off at Nicole’s house again around 11:15pm or so and after locking down the house, I wearily crawled into bed.

Bark! Bark! Bark!! “Hush….” I groaned, turning over in my sleep. The dogs’ barking grew louder and more intense and they would not stop. I checked the clock. It was 11:52pm. That’s when I heard the rattling on the garage door just below me. I froze and waited.  Maybe it was just imagined. The boys’ stories are just getting to my head. A pause in the barking. The door rattled again. At that point, I was out of bed, pacing the landing and thinking of what to do. After several moments of debating it, I decided it was better to be paranoid than dead; locked myself in the master bedroom; and trembling, called 911. A calm man’s voice answered the other line, “What’s your emergency.”

“I’m house-sitting and the dogs just started barking and then I heard banging on the garage door and I wasn’t sure what I should do.”  It all came out in a rush; I wasn’t sure which details were important and which weren’t.  He dispatched me to the police department where another man asked me more pointed questions.

“What’s your address?”

“Did you see anyone?”

“Are you alone in the house?”

“How big are the dogs?”

“Where is the bedroom situated?”

 “Are you armed with a knife or gun?”

Finally, he said he’d send an officer to patrol the area and asked if I wanted to talk to him. Thinking that I didn’t want to risk opening the door for anyone who was not a police officer, I said no. They dispatched their officer and I curled up and slept lightly the rest of the night.

When Nicole and her mom returned I explained the situation to them, hoping that maybe it was just an overreaction and the dogs occasionally barked at nothing in the night. Apparently, the only explanation for their incessant barking was that there actually was someone there. It came to light that they’ve had several garage robberies in the neighborhood recently as well, so I did the right thing in making the call. It was quite a frightening and sobering experience, but the good news is that nothing worse happened than a little scare.