Three Nines
Way back in the days of childhood, when everything seemed brighter, lighter and more fun (or at least that's what I'll be telling myself when I'm old and grey), a young Calamarain was in his first year of secondary school at the tender age of eleven.

Now, being a weirdo and a geek (still am), he was desperate to fit in. He wanted to be one of the cool kids, and be in the 'in crowd'. Now, as it happened, he overheard two of the older kids daring each other to do various things. They varied from the straightforwardly carried out (eat three packets of the canteen's salt), to the stuff that would get you instantly expelled (To tell the well-liked headmaster to go and f**k himself).

They went back and forth for a while, and one of them dared the other to call 999 for a laugh. This was not carried out, and they carried on daring back and forth. But young Calamarain had heard this, and thought he had a way to get into the popular crowd! He would go up to them the next day, and tell them he'd carried out their dare.

And so he went up to the payphone at the side of the canteen, dialed 999 (the UK emergency services number for those of you in another country), waited to hear something then put the phone down instantly. Other things then distracted our hero and he thought no more of it.

Until the next day. The day began with the form teacher's lecture, whose words can still be recalled today;

"You can waste my time, you can waste each other's time, but don't you dare waste their time"

bringing much guilt with them. The sort of guilt you only get when you hear a parent tell you they're not angry, just disappointed. Our hero remained silent, but felt awful, for it was a speech worthy of this

This was followed by an assembly later in the day, lecturing the entire school on what the emergency services did, and how they'd had to waste time calling the school back to check there wasn't a real emergency. Tell them quite bluntly that someone could have died because of the time lost. The culprit had until the end of the day to own up, or things would go much worse. As our hero's parents had both worked in the emergency services at some point, the guilt was currently way past 'let down everyone', and onto 'I've killed someone!'

The further lecture from the form teacher in the afternoon would have forced a painful confession... had young Calamarain not overheard the same two older boys as yesterday arguing, each accusing the other of having dialed 999. Both red-faced and threatening to tell the teachers that the other had done it, before eventually agreeing to keep silent, and both hoping out loud that the teachers couldn't possibly know and were bluffing.

Thus, silence reigned. Our hero felt awful, but kept his mouth shut, hoping against hope. And of course, they were bluffing.

But young Calamarain still felt like crap for the next week. And quite rightly so - you do not waste their time, it's more valuable than yours. And he never admitted it to anyone until this day, fourteen years later.

Apologies for length.
(calamarain just invented dehydrated water, Fri 2 Nov 2007, 2:28, 3 replies)

In reality I doubt you caused someone's death, but I do understand the level of guilt you must have felt! :'(
This reminds me of something that happened a few years back. I'd just come out of the cinema with my friends, so I switched my mobile-phone on. However, I managed to do this in such a way that it immediately dialled 999 (I don't know how!). Being quite young and innocent at the time, I was horrified and hung up. Then I worried that I should have stayed on the line and told them that I'd called by accident, rather than hanging up. My friends reassured me that everything would be fine as we wandered around the town centre. Then, my phone rang, displaying a local number I didn't recognise. I answered.

"Did we receive an emergency call from you?" asked a strict-sounding woman.

"Yes, I'm so sorry, my 'phone dialled 999 by accident!" I half-wailed back.

"Well you've wasted our time. It's an offence to make false 999 calls."

"I'm sorry!" I said desperately.

Laughter. It was my friend Jenny calling from a telephone box round the corner. She hadn't even bothered to put on a different voice; I'm just an idiot.
(Ovaltina, Fri 2 Nov 2007, 3:32, closed)

Over 30%
Oh, quite. Now I'm grown up (or at least older), I'm sadly aware of how many hoax 999 calls there are.

But when you're 11... it's one hell of a guilt trip.
(calamarain just invented dehydrated water, Fri 2 Nov 2007, 4:16, closed)

YOU'RE A BAD PERSON
you should be ashamed of yourself!! wasting "their" time!!

:o)
( zulu eh?, Fri 2 Nov 2007, 9:47, closed)