911, What Is Your Emergency?

On our way home from my parents' house last night, I had the opportunity to do two things I had never, never ever done before.

I called 911, and I called the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

For two completely unrelated incidents. Talk about an exciting drive home.

It started innocently enough. We were driving down Waterloo toward I-35 when we saw smoke. And where there's smoke, there's fire. And where there is fire in late June, there is probably an idiot teenager running away with a *mostly* full box of bottle rockets.

Someone had caught a very large tree and a sign for the housing addition on fire. Big, bright, orange flames shot up, only 8 feet from a large group of cedar trees. Danger!

So I called 911 on my cell phone, after a moment of panic in which I thought there would be no way for the mysterious 911 person to know where I was. Silly Valerie, technology is amazing. The fire department was already on its way. Success!

Mitch and I continued home, talking in amazement about the fire and calling emergency crews and blah blah blah.

Until we nearly drove over a very large dead deer on Highway 33. It stretched the entire length of the other lane, and its head was sticking into our lane. We were able to swerve and avoid it, but felt this just might be a safety concern for all those folks driving the other way.

*55 for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and a quick explanation later, we were home safely and went straight to bed.

It's hard work saving lives, you know?