Two news stories coming out of Florida this week:

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (March 3) – Authorities say a Florida woman called 911 three times after McDonald’s employees told her they were out of McNuggets.
A police report said 27-year-old Fort Pierce resident Latreasa L. Goodman told authorities she paid for a 10-piece last week but was later informed the restaurant had run out.

She says she was refused a refund and told all sales were final. A cashier told police she offered Goodman a larger portion of different food for the same price, but Goodman became irate.
Police say Goodman was cited on a misuse of 911 charge.

and

Jacksonville <,Fla.> police say Reginald Peterson needs to learn that 911 is not the appropriate place to complain that Subway left the sauce off a spicy Italian sandwich.
Police said the 42-year-old man dialed 911 twice last week so he could have his sub made correctly. The second call was to complain that officers weren’t arriving fast enough.

Subway workers told police Peterson became belligerent and yelled when they were fixing his order. They locked him out of the store after he left to call police.
When officers arrived, they tried to calm Peterson and explain the proper use of 911. Those efforts failed, and he was arrested on a charge of making false 911 calls.

Do they give special classes for this in Florida? And what, exactly, did the callers expect the police to do… buy more nuggets for McDonald’s and add the sauce themselves at Subway?

Maybe they could have cited the locations for impersonating a real restaurant.

Seriously, having been put on hold a couple  of times waiting for a 911 operator, I hope the penalties are STIFF! Too bad we can’t legislate against stupidity.  Almost everyone has fallen victim to a messed up fast food order (Ruth once actually drove back to a Wendy’s to complain about an order after she arrived home to find it severely screwed up), but calling an emergency response number?

March 4, 2009