How My Son Dialed 911 from Skype and the Police Came

Someone is knocking at my door at 8am and they won’t go away. Why, oh why? I’m pregnant, my husband is in Afghanistan and my four year old is happily playing Curious George on PBSkids.org in the next room.

I don’t want to get out of bed if it is the FedEx guy. Then my phone rings. Well, I guess it must be someone I know. It turns out to be my neighbor. She informs me that the police are knocking frantically on my door. What?

My stomach drops and I’m wondering if my husband is okay. I hurry up and get some clothes on and answer the door. Apparently, the MPs asked my neighbor if she had a spare key to my home because they wanted to come into my house. Thankfully she declined and offered to call me first.

Apparently my oh-so-smart four year old dialed 911. How in the heck could he dial 911 when we don’t have a home phone?? The only cell phone was still in my possession, so I was puzzled.

I asked them if they were sure they had the right house and they assured me that they had the right home. I wandered on into the office and figured out how it happened. Skype. There is a game on Curious George where George dials a very similar keypad to make calls to win the game.

He was playing this game when he accidentally clicked the wrong button and Skype appeared. He was practicing doing his good deed for the day, memorizing and practicing dialing 911 in case an emergency were to happen.

As many of you know with the iPhone, there’s a lock code and non-traditional buttons. We have been practicing pushing the buttons without actually pressing the ‘send’ button. When I asked him if he called the police, he said no, but proudly told me how he had been practicing dialing 911 on the computer.

Only one of the MPs saw the humor in the situation. The other MP wanted to lecture me about how calling 911 isn’t a joke. I don’t think she has ever had kids, because she didn’t understand that he didn’t even know he was dialing 911. After about 5 minutes solid of her lecturing me… Yes. Yes. Got it. Ok. Uh-huh. They left.

I wonder how many other parents have had their kids dial 911 on accident?