The [not really] Quilting Police

This was the view from my house one morning but it was not the quilting police coming to take me away for some kind of sewing infraction (yet!). No, instead, my neighbours got to get their gossip on because my phone dialing skills left something to be desired.

My job allows me the luxury of working from home. I do instructional design which means I work with a subject matter expert to develop instructional materials and activities to support the desired incomes. It is a systematic, detailed, and creative process (much like quilting) and I enjoy it very much.I would say about 80% of the time, I work with law enforcement officers and their agencies. One day, I needed to call someone at the police service in the big city up the road from me. Thinking I was somehow in my office on campus, I dialed 9 and then 1 for long distance and THEN, I realized I wasn't on campus (and therefore did not need to dial 9 for an outside line) and went to hang up, only I fat-fingered 1 instead....I didn't realize I had done this and managed to hang up my phone. It rang a moment later; it was the 911 communications centre asking if things were okay, telling me they had a 911 hang-up from my number. At first, I was very confused and then I realized what I had done. The policy is they send over a car to make sure everything is okay. Sure enough, a nice young officer from the academy I work with came over and went through the house to check that everything was alright. I don't know how many times I apologized, but he was very pleasant and he went on his way. When I saw him out, I noticed there was another car outside so I got out my cell phone and snapped this picture, you know, so I could send it to my kids and get them totally freaked out about what mom was up to - you do that too, right?

While I am very glad that our service is able to check out calls like that (because sometimes, someone who hangs up really does need their help), I was sickened that I had made such an error. These guys are frequently stretched to the limits and the last thing they need is to come see me because I epic fail at dialing my phone. I never thought of myself as not being careful, but I am extra careful now whenever I am dialing the phone, just in case!

Okay, back to quilting!

e.