It’s my last day off for the week, but it’s not really a day off, because I have to work at midnight, so I have to get some sleep before work. I also started a second job waiting tables to make a little money for all of the activities my girls are into, so I feel like I haven’t had a day off in forever! I’m working at a local restaurant, and it’s kind of funny to wait on the guys that I work with at the sheriff’s office. I think they feel kinda bad about having me wait on them, because they’re always so easy to wait on, and they always tip me really well! I’ve been out to eat with them before on ride-a-longs, and I know they don’t usually tip that well!!

Wednesdays are our busy day. My oldest daughter has two dance classes, and my youngest daughter has one dance class and then gymnastics. The classes are spaced just far enough apart that there isn’t really time to do anything in between, so we usually go to the library and read a book or get on the computers while we wait for the next class. Occasionally, they’ll bring their homework, but they’re usually too distracted to do it until we get home.

This is my time of day to get a few things done while the girls are at school. My laundry is so far behind, that I’m not even sure if there’s a basket under that pile anymore. My oldest daughter decided she wanted to trade in her flute for a trumpet, so I went to the music store yesterday to rent a trumpet. $40 per month to rent a trumpet! We live in a small house, and she’s just learning to play. Our dogs aren’t happy about it!! It might be better if she wasn’t trying to start by playing the theme to Phantom of the Opera. I love that musical, and my husband and I saw it many years ago when it came to our city, but I listened to her practice the first line of the song over and over again last night! It makes me appreciate my quiet time today even more!!

Has anyone ever heard of Initiative 502? I had never heard of it before, but lately my friends on Facebook keep talking about whether or not marijuana should be legalized, and now I keep hearing about how this affects drivers. The whole debate makes my head spin more than the actual marijuana probably would!! If we’re talking about medicinal purposes, I don’t believe it’s up to the government to decide what someone can take if they have a medical condition. If I was seriously ill or in extreme pain and needed relief, I wouldn’t really care what the government had to say about what I do in the privacy of my own home. But, once we get behind the wheel, we’ve made it their business.

My personal opinion is that the government just doesn’t like the fact that marijuana is a plant that can be grown in nature by anyone, and they’re mad because they’re not getting their share of the money. Once they figure out a way to regulate and tax it, it will be available by prescription only, and people will face fines or jail time for selling or manufacturing a controlled substance. It’s all about money.

While I do believe that the government is more concerned about money than the possible side effects of marijuana, it’s never alright to drive under the influence of anything that can decrease your ability to drive safely. My daughter will soon be old enough to drive, and I feel better knowing that the officers in our town do all they can to get drivers off the road if they are under the influence of anything whether or not it is prescribed by a physician. I also believe that something needs to be done about keeping people off the roads once they’ve lost their driving privileges. Seriously. How many times should someone get a citation for driving on a revoked license before they go to jail?

Our dispatch office is in the basement of the sheriff’s office, so not only do we not get to see what’s happening on a call, we can’t even tell if it’s night or day unless we look at the cameras that are surveying the parking lot!

When we get an interesting call, our imaginations can run wild while we’re waiting for the officers to let us know what’s going on. One of our calls from the early hours of the morning was no exception! We had a call from a husband who was reporting that his elderly wife hurt her back, and he hesitantly admitted that she’d had a few drinks. He didn’t want to say how she hurt her back, so you can just imagine some of the explanations that were going through our minds!

Well, as it turns out, this was one of those times when the fantasy was better than the reality. We were waiting for the officer to give us an update on what was happening, and when he finally advised us of the situation, it was a bit of a let down! As it turned out, she was just looking for a ride to the hospital in the ambulance, because she was out of her prescription painkillers!  That put an end to our visions of her swinging from the chandelier or injuring herself while in an embarrassing situation! There’s still hope for next call!

Protecting the Three

I am the Officer, follow me
Preserving the peace is where I’ll be
I am the torch that lights the way
In darkness my courage will pave a way
Leading the others, that is me
I am the Officer guiding the three

I am the Fire Fighter, follow me
Into the flames is where I will be
I am he who battles the beast
To protect that on which it would feast
Leading strength to the others, that is me
I am the Fire Fighter supporting the three

I am the Medic, follow me
Easing the pain is where I will be
I am the one who helps them survive
Lifting the fallen to keep them alive
Treating the others, that is me
I am the Medic healing the three

I am the Dispatcher, don’t follow me
Agony and chaos is where I will be
Working in obscurity, this forgotten place
Not death, but insanity is the danger I face
Answering the call, that is me
I am the Dispatcher protecting the Three

~~ Author Unknown~~

 Hey, Everyone…Who wants to check their blood alcohol content!! Come on, you know you’ve always wanted to see what it would be after a drink! This little keychain lets you check your own blood alcohol content and makes me want to have a drink just so I can check my alcohol level! I’m not sure I’d actually want to put it on my key chain though, or people might think I’m a raging alcoholic, but it’s a cool thing to throw in your purse or bag if you’re going to go out and have a drink. This is supposed to be the smallest breathalyzer ever made, and it has additional mouthpieces, so your friends can check their BAC (Blood Alcohol Content).

I’m one of those people who can have one drink and I’m done, so it would be interesting to see how much alcohol is actually in your system after a drink. I can imagine some of my friends turning this into a game by checking their levels after each drink and comparing levels!

Check out the legal BAC limits by state and legal consequences for driving under the influence. Drinking and driving is no joke, and I know we’ve all heard it a million times, but please don’t drink and drive. It’s just not worth the risk!

How do you make a bunch of officers blush and go running out the door? Turn on the movie Magic Mike, and all of a sudden, they all remember that they have to leave because they have reports to finish!! I’ve never seen grown men blush the way our officers did when they walked into dispatch and saw Magic Mike on the TV!

These are the same guys who’ve seen and heard just about everything, but this movie comes on and they all looked so embarrassed that they couldn’t even look at the TV! Even our officer who holds the title of dealing with the most people in compromising situations on calls couldn’t handle sitting and watching this movie when the dance scenes came on.

I don’t see why they were so embarrassed. This movie has fireman and policemen in it. Well, sort of…it has dancers who were dressed in police and fireman costumes.  That’s close enough!

I’d never really thought much about it until I started working as a dispatcher, but it’s so important to know where you are, especially when you travel out of your area. If you call 911 from a cell phone, dispatch doesn’t know where you’re calling from, so it’s important to at least have a general idea of where you are. It’s also important to make sure you know the address of the house you are calling from if you are visiting friends or family in case there is an emergency.

When you’re traveling on a highway, check the side of the road once in a while for the number on the green mile marker signs on the side of the road. It’s also a good idea to remember the name of an exit that you passed so emergency services will be able to look in the area you are calling from even if that’s not exactly where you are at the time of your call.

When someone calls 911 from a cell phone, the only information that is usually provided to the 911 call center is the location of the cell tower that picked up the call. It’s important to get into the habit of looking around at landmarks such a building or restaurant that would be familiar to someone, use the mile marker signs on a highway, or know the name of the street you’re on if you’re in the middle of nowhere!

We all have those regular callers who call just to have someone to talk to. They know the dispatchers by name and they think we know who they are, so they start talking like you’re old friends as they tell you their story.  They’ll start out by explaining why they called, but it quickly turns into a conversation about something totally irrelevant to the reason for the call. Once we’ve established whether or not they have an issue we could help them with, there are a few of us who will talk to them as long as we can, but we always let them know that we will have to hang up if we get another call.

We’re not a large agency, so we don’t have a constant call flow, and I enjoy talking to people when time allows. I believe that if someone feels the need to call dispatch to have someone to talk to, they might not have anyone else to talk to at that moment, and that’s a lonely thought. Spending a few minutes on the phone with someone might make their day, and it makes my day when they say they enjoyed talking to me. We could all be in that position someday, and it would be nice to know that someone cared about what we had to say and didn’t think of us as the crazy person who calls in for everything.