Friday is still too far away...

And it's Good Friday this week, which means I should probably be doing deep spiritual stuff instead of telling people to flip off.

But I've got one for the week, so I'll share it now:

Idiots who call 911 because the restaurant screwed up their order.

I'm sorry but WHAT? In what universe is it OK to call the cops out for that?

There have been several. The most recent happened (apparently) near Dallas, where some woman called the cops because her shrimp fried rice lacked shrimp.

But before that, some woman called the cops on her local McDonald's because they screwed up her McNugget order.

I am officially embarrassed on behalf of my gender. (Can we revoke those two's "woman" cards, please?)

I seem to remember hearing of another one - a complaint over coffee, maybe?

But seriously, people, you need to get some freakin' priorities here.

911: the number you call if your house is on fire, your neighbor's house is on fire, if you or someone in your household is having a heart attack, if you are being robbed or kidnapped, if there has been a bad auto accident.

In other words: EMERGENCIES WHERE SOMEONE MIGHT DIE

You do NOT call 911 when the fast food place mucks up your order. As I said before: in what universe does that constitute an emergency?

(No, wait, don't tell me: In the Special Snowflake Universe that Revolves Around YOU. That's where it constitutes an emergency.)

I shudder to think that these stupid 911 calls may be symptomatic of a bigger problem: people either coming to believe that the government should step in and save them every time something goes even a little wrong. (because seriously: McDonald's being out of McNuggets is NOT the worst thing that will ever happen to you. If it's the worst thing that happened to you all day, then you've actually had not that bad of a day by global standards. Though I will say - the McDonald's refusing to refund her money is messed up).

Or else it's symptomatic of the fact that we now have a critical mass of people who believe that they are SO important, that their wants and desires are SO much the center of everything, that a problem like a McNuggets shortage rises to the level of someone's house being broken into.

And neither one of those makes me feel very good about the future. I don't WANT the government "solving" my minor problems for me - because in my experience, they create more in the solving. (And also, they seem to more and more have a desire to control things in my life "for my own good." I could see five years down the road the cops showing up to a McNuggets call and telling the woman that McNuggets had too much fat for her and too many calories and she damn well better shut up and eat a salad and diet Coke instead).

And I definitely don't want more ME MY MINE vortexes out there - people who can't see past their own nose, whose own wants are the only things that matter. Because as I speculated on in an earlier post, people who think they are ENTITLED to things and thing they have been VICTIMIZED because they do not get those things can become very dangerous.

You know, I've been in situations like either of those women. On rare cases, I've "sent back" a restaurant meal (in one case, my supposedly medium-rare steak was practically charred all through. The waiter kind of gasped when I showed him where I had cut through the steak, so I figured I was justified. Another time a steak was still nearly raw inside; the waitress - this was in an Amtrak dining car - agreed it needed to be cooked longer. In both cases the steak I got back was just fine.). But I did it by asking politely, by saying, "I'm sorry but I ordered medium rare..." In a few cases I've gotten a medium rare steak that was either closer to medium or closer to rare than I might like, but I just figured people judge these things differently - and said nothing, and ate it anyway.

In other cases, I've been at restaurants where they had to "86" some menu item right before I ordered it. It's always a disappointment, and on more than one occasion I had to say, "I'm sorry, but I'll need another minute or two to figure out what I want instead." But it's a these-things-happen moment - yeah, it stinks, but people are not doing it to me specifically to thwart my happiness.

So I totally do not GET calling 911 over those kind of disappointments. Seriously, what are the cops supposed to do? Arrest Ronald McDonald?