Why the Local 911 Center Has Our Numbers Memorized.

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Before I tell you these stories I need to give you a little background. I spent years working as a law enforcement dispatcher and communicator — and then in healthcare security and communications for a large non-profit hospital. I know exactly how a 911 center operates. I know what happens when a call comes in. I know the protocol. I know the people.

Which makes it all the more embarrassing that my neighborhood has accidentally called 911 on itself. Twice. On separate occasions. Years apart. With completely different groups of people involved.

We are not proud. We are also not surprised.

Part One — The Covid Card Game

It was 2021. The world had been through a lot. We were all doing our best following the “guidelines”, being responsible adults, except for on this particular evening when five of us ladies were gathered around Bev’s kitchen table playing a game, Telestrations, as we simply were desperate for reconnecting and having some much-needed laughter and joy. Now Telestrations is by no means a new board game, but it was relatively new to us and between the martinis and this hysterical game, provided hours of belly laughs and frequent trips to the bathroom, as we often needed to excuse ourselves from the table before our bladders simply could not be controlled/suppressed any longer. I think it’s safe to say this group goes through its fair share of pantyliners on game nights, if you catch my drift.

Bev is one of my closest friends. She lives a few blocks over, still well within the Town of Algoma but not on our street, but she and her husband Mike have been part of our world for years now. We met them at a fire at Sean and Heather’s one night and never really let them leave. That is how it works around here.

So there we were. Five women. Cards on the table. Cocktails in hand and frequent unplanned “potty breaks” in full stride. Having an absolutely lovely and completely unauthorized evening.

Heather had left a little earlier than the rest of us. Heather is married to Sean and works as a court reporter — a job that requires an intimate familiarity with the law — which I mention only because of what happened next.

“There was a knock on Bev’s window. Then another. In the dark, at midnight, with five women who were not supposed to be gathered together in the first place.”

Nobody moved. We looked at each other. We looked at the window. We saw absolutely nothing in the dark and collectively decided that was somehow worse. It happened again a little while later — another knock, another round of terrorized faces around the card table.

Then came a knock at the front door. Then the doorbell. Then more doorbell. Bev finally answered it, fully expecting whoever it was, we all figured it was our goofy husbands, to run off into the night.

Instead, standing at the door in full uniform was Deputy Eric. We know Eric well — he lives directly across from Jock on our street — but this was not a neighborly visit. It was midnight, it was Bev’s door, and he was there in an official capacity. As the remaining ladies, rebels, every one of us, dissolved into uncontrollable cackles upon realizing it was not our husbands, Eric advised Bev that he was conducting a welfare check because someone at this address had called 911.

None of us had called 911. We were very clear on that. We were also very clear that there were five of us gathered indoors during a time when that was not exactly encouraged, and Officer Eric was standing right there counting heads.

He provided us with the phone number that had placed the call. We did not recognize it. We called Heather — who had left earlier — and when we read her the number she went very quiet for a moment and then told us it was her son Ethan’s phone. He was a teenager at the time. His phone had apparently been tucked in her purse and jostled around enough on the way out to accidentally dial 911 all on its own.

Heather — the court reporter — had accidentally called 911 on an illegal pandemic gathering on her way out the door.

Officer Eric, to his enormous credit, did not make a big deal of any of it. We have not forgotten that. Neither has Heather, I am fairly certain.

Part Two — Jay’s Lawn Chair Trilogy

Fast forward to fall of 2025. The pandemic is a memory, gatherings are fully legal again, and about ten of us are gathered at Brian and Brittney’s enjoying smash burgers another neighbor made on his new Blackstone, which were tremendous! As the night approaches and temperatures fall, we move our chairs to form a circle around the Solo Stove, the smokeless fire pit that debuted at our house and somehow ended up in every single backyard on our street. Honestly, if there was one single item that brought our neighborhood together, that item is the Solo stove, hands down. The night is going so well, drinks are flowing, music is playing, the fire is warm and mesmerizing to watch. Everyone is exactly where they want to be.

Jay’s phone rings. He picks it up. It is the 911 center.

His phone, resting peacefully in the drink holder on his lawn chair, had apparently decided on its own to contact emergency services. Jay explained that he was fine, that it must have been an accident, that he was not even touching his phone. The 911 operator understood. Everyone had a good laugh. Jay settled back into his chair.

“Twenty minutes later, his phone rang again. It was 911. Jay’s lawn chair had called them back.”

The chair rocks slightly. Jay was barely moving. And yet somehow, for reasons that physics and common sense cannot fully explain, that chair was generating enough motion to repeatedly pocket dial emergency services from a phone sitting in a cup holder. In case you are curious, here is the “guilty party”, that I will continue to identify simply as, the lawn chair.

Jay explained again. Everyone laughed again. We suggested perhaps moving the phone. Jay put it back in the cup holder. I want to be very clear that I had no part in this decision.

The third call came in not long after. Jay picked up the phone, listened for exactly two seconds, and then — without saying a single word — turned and held it out to me. The look on his face was that of a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar for the third time in the same evening and had simply run out of explanations.

I took the phone.

The 911 operator on the other end did not bother with Jay at all. They simply said: “Put Nikki on the phone.”

“They knew. Of course they knew. I had worked with these people. They knew exactly who was sitting next to that lawn chair and they were done negotiating with the chair.”

I made a solemn promise to personally separate Jay from his phone for the remainder of the evening. The operator — someone I had worked alongside for years at that very 911 center — accepted my terms. We still laugh about it every time we see each other.

Jay’s phone spent the rest of the night inside the house. The fire continued. The drinks continued. No further emergency calls were placed.

And that is the story of why, if you ever call 911 in our area and mention the Town of Algoma, there is a very good chance someone on the other end will quietly ask if Nikki is available.

New here? There is a whole archive of neighborhood chaos waiting for you — start from the beginning.

— Nikki