Uncomfortable

Today I had a caller refuse to give me even one iota of personal or identifying information. But far from being the usual irritation, this caller nearly made me burst out laughing.

I answered the 911 line with my standard, "911, what is the location of your emergency?" only to be greeted by a timid child's voice that echoed as though he weren't speaking directly into the phone.

"It's me," the boy admitted sadly.

"Hello? This is 911. Can you hear me?"

"It's me," he repeated. He sounded as though he knew he was about to get scolded for eating a cookie before dinner.

"This is 911. Can I help you?"

The boy didn't answer a third time and some background noise scuffled shortly before an older child's voice spoke directly into the phone.

"Hey Mom. Sorry, I thought he called someone random."

"Actually, this is 911. Do you need help?"

Silence.

"Hello? This is 911. Do you need help?"

"No, we don't. Sorry. My little brother accidentally called. This is 911? I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Who'm I talking to?"

"Um. I'm not comfortable telling you that."

Gotta say. That's the first time I've heard that. But, ok. Let's roll with it. "Ok. Where are you?" I'm staring at your location on my screen, but I'm going to ask anyway.

"Um. I'm not comfortable telling you that."

Wow. Kid's learned stranger danger, I guess. "Ok. That's fine. Is there an adult nearby that I can talk to?"

"Um. I'm not comfortable telling you that."

So, "no" is the answer to there being an adult present. But I need some information. Anything, really. "Ok. That's fine. You know this is the police, right? This is 911. I just need to know everything is ok there and you don't need emergency services."

"Um. I'm not comfortable telling you that."

"Hey. Are you ok? Is there any trouble there?"

"Yeah, we're fine, I'm just not comfortable telling you . . . " The kid stopped and sounded confused about using "that" again.

"Right." Any kid who's hesitating at improperly using a demonstrative pronoun without a clear antecedent is okay in my book. "If everything's ok, I'm going to hang up now."

"Yeah it's ok. Sorry again. Bye."

I'm surprised you were comfortable telling me that.