Like many of us know, 999 in the United Kingdom is the emergency number. Now till a certain period of time, the world had similar notions of emergency. It meant something urgent. The emergency number was needed in case of real emergencies, like if some threatening danger staring at you from a distance, 999 will be at your rescue.
However, very recently, some of the callers have changed the definition of an emergency. The calls are no longer to report a theft or anything of any paramount importance. But nowadays, people, who have very easy access to phones, do not think twice before dialing the three digits. Maybe entertainment is lacking in the lives of some people, which makes them resort to such means to have some “fun”. There have been reports of people calling 999 on 1st January to greet the operators on New Year.
KFC apologises with a full page ad in today’s Metro. A masterclass in PR crisis management.#KFCCrisis pic.twitter.com/ZF4SfAuHl5
— Andrew Bloch (@AndrewBloch) February 23, 2018
While that can sound like a good gesture, there is still more coming up for you. This one rules in the list of weird complaints. Very recently, a man called 999 because world’s finger licking good chicken, a particular KFC outlet had run out of chicken. This ardent lover of chicken did not chicken out and took the “serious” matter in his own hands. Instead of waiting for a while, he chose to straight away dial the three magical numbers and inform it as an emergency. We wonder how hungry he was for some chicken, or shall we say, for some entertainment? KFC has been facing some problems lately due to shortage of chicken and that has led to some of the outlets being shut as well. But calling 999 over this and making it sound as a distress call is taking this a bit too far.
As pointed out by the Scotland Yard, what most people fail to realize is that these hoax calls can hinder the actual work of 999, when they could be solving a real emergency. KFC not having enough chicken or a bus driver whistling maybe an individual problem for great chicken lovers and decorum fans respectively, but these certainly are things which can be dealt with by the common man himself.
Image Credit: parikiaki.com
Amidst innumerable hoax calls, the earnest call for lack of chicken has to get the award for being this unique and making us forget the entire definition of emergency. If this is the scenario in the United Kingdom, we shall not be surprised at all if people in India start calling the emergency if the stores ran out of potato in the biriyani!
With the immense lack of common sense, it is obvious that people have started taking these emergency numbers as a joke. They are using it for their own entertainment and this can be one of the reasons behind the proliferation of crime all across the world because the emergency numbers are being kept engaged otherwise.
