Have you just been served a cold kebab and find yourself furious at the injustice of it? Have you slept through your alarm, nearly missed your flight and need someone to rush your to the airport? Are you annoyed that a clown is ripping people off by selling balloons ar £5 a pop? Are you wondering where the best place to get a bacon sandwich at 4am might be, or being kept awake by some annoyingly loud foxes?
Who you gonna call?
The answer is definitely do not, under any circumstances, call 999.
All of the above are from a list of the ten worst time-wasting emergency calls which the police have released, as a warning to members of the public not to make such calls during the festive days ahead.
What exactly does go through someone’s mind when they decide that 999 will definitely be able to help them find that elusive bacon sarnie in the early hours?!?
Our best guess is that the majority of these are drunk dials. Is there anything worse than drunk calling the police over Christmas?
Scotland Yard have said that Christmas and New Year are the busiest times of year for emergency services, and warned that nuisance calls waste valuable resources.
On average the Met receives more than 4.5m calls a year to the 999 and 101 numbers.
Chief Superindendant Pippa Mills, head of the Met’s command and control, told the Guardian: “This is just a sample of inappropriate calls received by our operators this year. Callers who do not have an emergency may prevent others who require our immediate assistance from getting through to us. This presents a real risk to our ability to respond to genuine emergency calls.”
She said 999 should only be dialled in an emergency, and if the complaint was not an emergency 101 should be called.
Here’s their full top ten most ridiculous time-wasting calls:
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A woman calling to say she had bought a cold kebab and the shop would not replace it
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Callers who missed their alarm and were going to be late for a flight wanting officers to take them to the airport.
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A woman who had seen a clown in London selling balloons for £5 each, which was much more than other clowns were charging.
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Callers in distress because their low-fuel indicator light had come on.
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A man calling to say his 50p coin was stuck in a washing machine at his local launderette and he wanted police to retrieve it.
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A man who did not have change for a parking machine claiming staff at a car park had kidnapped him because they were refusing to let him out for free.
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A caller who dialled 999 at 4am on a Saturday morning and asked: 'Where is the best place to get a bacon sandwich right now?'
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A man who called 999 as he was advised to call 111 but did not know the number.
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A woman who wanted police to deal with a couple of noisy foxes outside her home as they were preventing her from sleeping.
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A woman who dialled 999 to say there were men in her house trying to take her away. The men in question were police officers who had come to arrest her.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.