When calling 911...

I'm driving home from work the other day, and am on the freeway. It's a really annoying freeway onramp, very curvy, little merge room, and you're merging into a speed limit of 70 mph. The car in front of me is going 40. In rush-hour traffic. No joke. I get around him as fast as possible, so as not end up on the evening news as the cause of a 15-car-pileup.

I watch him in my rearview mirror. He's swerving all over the place, straddling the white line, then inside the lane, then pushing into the other lane...

'He's going to hurt someone.'

I dug through my purse and pulled out my cell phone. I dialed 9-1-1.

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?"
"Well, uh, it's not really an emergency..." I realized this wasn't a good time to be self-effacing. "There's a guy driving on the freeway. I think he's having a medical emergency or something."
"Why do you think he's having a medical emergency?"
"He's driving all over the place, weaving, with very varying speeds."
'Very varying?' I thought to myself.
"Why do you think this might be a medical emergency?"
"Well, uh, there's a handicapped card hanging from his rearview mirror."
"Okay. I will patch you through to state patrol."

I explained my story again to state patrol. The officer sounded cute, and I managed to refrain from asking if he was single. "I'm heading eastbound on I-90," I told him. "I just passed the Sullivan exit."

At the end of the call, the irony of the situation hit - I was talking on a cell phone, not on a hands-free device. What if I had been pulled over? "Could you hold on a minute, Officer? I need to hang up with the other officer before I can accept your ticket."

I got home and told my parents about my "ordeal." I got to the part about telling the officer my location on the freeway, when my dad interrupted me.

"Wait, you said you were going westbound."

"No, eastbound."

"You were leaving work, heading home."

"Correct."

"Then you were traveling westbound."

I recoiled in horror. Good samaritan that I am, I had just given the police the wrong information. They probably had caller ID, too. The rest of the evening, I sat on my cell phone in a mild panic. What if they called me back? What if they said, "Ms. D, you are an idiot. Next time you ever have to call 9-1-1, we will go in the opposite direction of where you tell us to go, and will probably find you quicker that way"?

Fine. Last time I try to do the right thing. Next time a cashier gives me too much change, I am keeping it.