Today I faced the extreme of an issue that has bothered me time and time again since we moved to Mississippi. The boys and I were waiting in the car for Joe while he was in the movie store picking out a "man movie" after a very strenuous day of manual labor all day Saturday. The small sedan next two me had 5 small children ages 3-6 in the back seat and an adult in the passenger seat. Then, the other adult returned to the car with 2 more children! One of whom became #6 in the back and the other who sat in the driver's seat with the driver. It was at this point that I was itching to call the police, but waited for Joe to get back to double check with him. (Sometimes I am more gung-ho about these things than he would want me to be).
He said it was fine if I called and so we drove a few aisles away, took down the cars make, model, and license plate, and parked to call the police. Imagine my surprise upon dialing 911 when I got a message saying that this number could not be dialed from this phone!
I had always assumed that even though we live in a small town, the cellular service would be linked locally to allow the use of 911, but that does not seem to be so. Joe is going to call on Monday to figure this out and in the meantime we are going to program his phone with the appropriate numbers. So, I pass this on as a caution...check to see what your cellular company's policy is on 911 and find out if it will work for you. Fortunately, we learned about all of this in a non-emergency situation.
As for the seven small children not even buckled in, I hope they were okay. And I'm sure that I'll have many more opportunities to be a concerned citizen in the future.
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