#40: The S Word
I think teaching children what is and isn’t appropriate language for various situations is very important. So I am all for parents encouraging their children not to say certain words to each other. However, it’s probably not an issue for emergency services to deal with, even if it’s your grandpa who answers the phone.
Really, the kid is lucky that it was his grandfather who was on the line that day; if it had been a regular dispatcher who was not inclined to be understanding, he could have been in a lot more trouble. My favorite part of this story, though, is the note at the end: it wasn’t that the kid thought that 911 was a good way to get hold of grandpa; it was that he genuinely thought that his brother telling him to shut up was the sort of emergency that you needed to get the police out for.