Wrong Number

**Before reading this post you have to scroll down to my music playlist and select song #52 which I added specifically for this story. (Ok you don't really have to...but it does go nicely with the theme.)

Reese came flying down the stairs this afternoon yelling, "Tate! 9-1-1! Tate! 9-1-1!".

Of course, I started flying up the stairs at that point not knowing what fate had befallen my youngest. My worry turned to embarrassment/panic when she continued, "Tate called 9-1-1!".

David found some of our old cell phones a few days prior, that he let the girls have to play around with. They don't have the sim cards in them, but they did still have batteries. They promptly decorated them with stickers and sharpies and carried on dozens of pretend conversations and sent dozens of pretend text messages.

Since they still were able to turn on, there was a button on the left of the screen that said "SOS", meaning if it was held down long enough, it could dial 9-1-1.

I said, "What?! Hang up!". I actually wasn't sure what to do. Drue had already hung it up and shoved the phone into my hands. "You guys are not allowed to play with these anymore!" I said.

Reese is going to be a panicker like me. Her eyes were wide and she said, "That's ok. I don't even want to play with them anymore. That scared me! My heart is really fluttering!".

I flipped the phone open and turned it completely off. I wasn't sure of the proper etiquette in this situation. Should I call back and apologize? I know they have a way of tracking cell phones now and I didn't want them to dispatch any emergency personnel to our house. I was starting to get nervous. I thought for a second we would all just leave the house for awhile and return in an hour or so.

I kept listening for sirens and looking out the window like an illegal drug deal had just gone down in my living room. Reese was very nervous as well. She was talking a mile a minute about what would happen if they came to the house, what would I say to them, would I make sure they knew that it wasn't her or Drue who called them? Then she stopped mid sentence and said, "I have to put a shirt on so they don't see me in my swimsuit."

Drue hadn't said much at this point. Tate was curled up on the floor of the girls' room with his blanket. Drue finally said, "Why would they come to our house?".

"Because they don't know whether or not there is a real emergency here." I explained.

"Well, I told them 'no'", she said.

"What?" I asked her.

Then she explained the rest of the story to me that I had been too crazed to stop and listen to before. "Someone answered the phone and said, '9-1-1...do you have an emergency?' so I said loud into the phone, 'NO' and took it from Tate and hung up."

That little tidbit of information made me feel a little more relieved. I was still afraid they had somehow traced our location and were on their way to scold me. But they never showed.

Too much excitement for one afternoon. Out came the cell phone batteries. They will just have to add their own sound effects for the beeping numbers and whatnot. I have no doubt one of them will pretend to be a 9-1-1 operator during their next phone game.