Let's See How Karma Screws Me This Time · Aug 19, 08:34 AM by Mike
The wife, baby and I were representing my father-in-law’s Bagna Calda recipe at an area Italian Festival Sunday…a day I originally planned to accomplish many house tasks with my two girls gone for a block of hours. Plans changed, and it was going to be the two of them alone at the festival. So I ended up going along…a 5-month-old baby, bubbling anchovies and oil, steady downpours and a bunch of crazy, old, strange Italian ladies was going to be too much for the wife to take on alone.
We left with plenty of time to get there because we didn’t know where in the hell we were going, and Pittsburgh’s road and bridges are in a constant state of construction, so a few detours could throw us off our Google Maps course.
On one detour, through the town of Tarentum, my wipers swept away the rain to display an old man standing in the middle of the street with his arm up, asking me to stop.
I let my window down a little bit to see what he wanted, and he asks, “Do you have a telephone in your car we can use to call the police, there’s been an accident.”
“Ummm…OK, yeah, I’ll pull over,” I told him.
I got out of the car, standing in the pouring rain, and asked what he needed.
“This lady hit me,” he told me, pointing to an old lady under an umbrella, as if I were a police officer taking statements. “She pulled out in front of me. Call the police.”
Seeing no damage, and relieved that his accident didn’t involve any injuries or him pissing himself, I asked if he had the phone number for the police.
“911,” he replied.
“I can’t call 911, this isn’t an emergency. 911 is for emergencies.”
“1515,” he replied.
“1515,” I asked. “What’s that?”
“The phone number for the police,” he answered.
“What’s the rest of the number, 724…something, something, something, 1515?,” I replied.
“Right, 724-1515,” he answered.
“Sir, that’s not enough digits, that’s not a complete phone number. I need three more numbers.”
“224,” he answered.
Not sure if he just pulled the numbers out of his ass, I thought ‘what the hell’ and dialed the number, which was the police administration line, and that gave a number to call for police assistance. The message didn’t repeat the number and I didn’t remember it, so I called back to hear it again, asking the man to write down the number I was going to say to him.
“If you would have called 911 already, we’d be done,” he said.
“Sir, 911 is for emergencies, write down this number,” I said.
He only wrote down the last four digits of the number on his wet paper, and that wasn’t really legible given the bleeding ink and shaky writing. I called one more time and vowed to just memorize it, which I did.
“Tarentum 911, what’s your emergency,” the voice answered.
Shit, the old man was probably right, I could have just dialed 911. “It’s not an emergency, I didn’t dial 911,” I said. “I’m helping two people who don’t have phones who had a car accident…they want police assistance.”
The operator asked a series of questions about injuries, debris, road blockage, etc. “Gotta be honest, I don’t see any signs of an accident.”
“Where’d that lady go,” the old man yelled, apparently ready to declare this a hit and run.
“She went under that porch to get out of the rain,” I told him. “I’m on the phone, can you keep it down?” With the rain, cars going by and Soft-talking Steve on the other end of the phone, I was having trouble hearing.
“Where is the accident,” the operator asked.
“I have no idea,” I replied. “Where are we,” I asked the old man.
“West 7th Street,” he replied.
“West 7th Street,” I told the operator. “Right across from 122 West 7th Street,” smart me said seeing the number on the building across the street.
“What’s your name and phone number,” the operator asked. I gave him the information, but reiterated that I was not involved in the accident, was just trying to help the man who flagged me down in the middle of the road, and that I was not going to be present with the police arrived.
“OK,” the operator said. “We’ll send someone out right away.”
I told the old man that the police were on their way and suggested he wait under the porch to stay dry.
“The police would have been here if you dialed 911,” he replied.
“Have a good day sir,” I answered as I got in the car. But the car was locked. The wife and baby apparently decided that if this was some sort of scam or robbery plot, they’d be safe inside while I was being assaulted.
At least the police would have been on the way to assist and laugh at me should this man, whose age was higher than his weight, have given me a whoopin’.
And good to know my wife is teaching my daughter that old men can beat up her daddy…
I got a good laugh out of this one… only you guys, I swear.
— Amy Aug 19, 02:39 PM #
I didn’t think it was possible but… I think 'the wife' married someone very much like her dad.
You can’t make this kind of stuff up.
— Mimi Aug 20, 10:43 PM #