Cleveland Karen

Let’s say you’re a kindly grandmother named Karen Clinton, living a quiet life in the suburbs near Cleveland, if by “quiet” you mean “highly alert to every car horn, raccoon sighting, and suspiciously large pothole this side of the Mississippi.” Karen sees herself as a neighborhood watchdog, only without the drooling or tail wagging (unless you count her strong opinions on road construction). One day, Karen’s phone rings. It’s the police. Now, when the police call you, your first thought is, “Uh oh, which one of my garden gnomes finally cracked under pressure?” Karen panics, imagining something dire—stolen hubcaps, identity theft, or perhaps the return of disco.

The dispatcher, in her most “I’ve-had-36-cups-of-coffee-and-today-is-my-last-day” voice, politely tells Karen to stay calm: “You don’t need to sit down. Everything’s fine.” You can see where this is going: Of course, everything is NOT fine. The dispatcher suddenly announces, “Congratulations, Karen! You’ve won the booby prize for being the dumbest person to call our police department on a repeated basis. Thanks for playing the Home Version of Let’s Annoy the Cops! Have a wonderful life.” Yes, that actually happened. Karen, a former firefighter and dispatcher herself (with 183 calls to the non-emergency line in 15 years—roughly one for every time Madonna reinvents herself), is left clutching her phone in confusion, contemplating whether to report this as “cruelty to grandmas.” Meanwhile, the dispatcher, whose career aspirations apparently included “Get fired in the most epic way possible,” is facing harassment charges, which is arguably not the best addition to your LinkedIn profile. She’s pleaded not guilty and will go to trial in September, which should be entertaining, especially if they let Karen live-tweet it. But let’s give credit where it’s due: At least Karen wasn’t dialing 911 every time her neighbor’s garden hose took a suspicious left turn. She used the non-emergency line, as all civic-minded grandmothers should. Which means the real booby prize still goes to the guy who called 911 because his pizza was late. 

This has been a public service announcement from the Office of Neighborhood Watchdogs and Surly Dispatchers Who Just Can’t Even.