Occasionally, when I respond to a call for service, I listen to the complainant's story and find myself thinking, "You called the police for THIS?"  A lot of people seem to think that the police are there to resolve any little problem that pops up in their life, so they call us for everything.  A lot of people also seem to be under the impression that have a right to never be inconvenienced, or be made to feel bad, or frustrated, or annoyed.  When were the sign-ups for the "perfect life" program?  I must have missed them.  I was under the impression that you sometimes had to put up with things that you didn't like, and that the best way of doing so was to not let yourself get too upset over the insignificant things.  Not quite sure what I'm talking about?  Let me give you a few examples.

Suppose your neighbor, whom you've never made the slightest effort to get to know or even be slightly civil to, makes a habit of mowing six inches onto your lawn whenever he cuts his own grass.  Suppose the first few times it happened, you tried to ignore it, but he still does it.  What would the next logical step be?  Well, naturally you should pick up the phone, dial 911 (of course you dial 911 for this non-emergency call) and report a dispute with your neighbor.  Maybe you could file charges and get your neighbor arrested for trespassing.  Maybe you could get a police report on file so you can later show it in court when you sue your neighbor for "pain and suffering."  Maybe the police could show up and "throw a good scare" into your rude neighbor by threatening to arrest him or RICO his lawn mower.  You aren't quite certain what will happen, but you damn well KNOW that as a taxpayer and all-around "good person" you absolutely don't have to put up with this kind of crap.  For some mysterious reason, the police officer who shows up doesn't seem to consider this problem to be all that serious, and even though he offers to ask your neighbor to stop mowing six inches of your lawn, you get the impression that even if the unauthorized grass-cutting doesn't stop, the cop really isn't going to do anything about it.  The officer (who, in your opinion, obviously doesn't know what the hell he's doing) even has the audacity to suggest that you and your neighbor work this out on your own, and tells you that it really isn't a matter for the police.  "I don't know why I pay taxes in this town," you say to yourself after the cop drives away on his way to a report of a four-year-old girl with an allergic reaction to a bee sting who is not breathing and has no pulse.

Or, suppose you are parking in the lot at Shop Rite, and as you get out of your car some guy calls you an asshole and says you took his spot.  You don't think you did, because you don't remember anyone else nearby when you pulled into that spot.  But you KNOW that you don't have to put up somebody calling you an asshole; after all, you're a taxpayer, you have rights, and you have just been verbally assaulted in front of witnesses (even though your "witnesses" couldn't care less and are already getting into their own cars and driving away.)  What should your next move be?

Some people might think a good next move would be to recall the conversation you had yesterday afternoon with your son Timmy, who is in the fourth grade.  Timmy complained to you that another boy in his class had called him a "boogerhead" and he was upset by that.  You told Timmy that the boy who called him a name was being childish, and that he should be a big boy and ignore it when people call him names.  "Sticks and stones may break my bones," you told him, "but names will never hurt me."

But that clearly has nothing to do with this situation, because you have rights (the right to avoid being called names is clearly spelled out in the Bill of Rights, sandwiched between that thing about quartering troops and that other thing about searches and seizures, isn't it?) and therefore you don't have put up that kind of crap.  So you whip out your cellular phone and call 911 (of course you call 911 for this) and report a verbal assault going on in the parking lot of Shop Rite.  When the police arrive, they don't seem all that concerned about this obvious injustice and violation of your civil liberties.  After determining that no one hit, punched, or kicked anyone else, they ask the guy who called you an asshole to please not call you an asshole any more, and that's all they seem willing to do about it.  They nod in agreement when you talk about how you shouldn't have to put up with people calling you names in the middle of a parking lot, and they commiserate with you as you complain about how people don't have manners any more.  But they don't seem willing to arrest the guy who called you an asshole, or even to threaten to arrest him just to "throw a scare" into him.  As the officers leave the scene to respond to a report of a multiple-car crash with serious injuries you think to yourself:  "Obviously these aren't very good cops.  They probably didn't know what to do, so they did nothing."

One last example:  You go to the gas station late one night to fill up your car.  When you try to pay before pumping, the attendant tells you that he can't change the hundred-dollar bill you have.  He tells you that there is less than twenty dollars in change in the register - everything else is in the safe and he can't access it.  But you don't have any smaller bills, so if he won't make change for your hundred-dollar bill, you won't be able to pay cash to gas up your car.  The best way for you to react to this?  Pick up your cellular phone, call 911 (of course), and report a "dispute over payment".

Maybe you think that the officer who shows up can somehow force the attendant to make change for you.  Maybe you think the officer who shows up will be carrying a bag full of rolls of quarters.  I don't really know what's going in your spoiled little mind at the moment, but I can take a guess.

You have been inconvenienced, and you think that you should never, ever be inconvenienced.  Handling the situation yourself in a mature, responsible manner never occurred to you, because you were too busy enjoying your righteous anger to think clearly.

As a footnote to this example, after I arrived at the gas station and explained to the "gentleman" who called that there wasn't a single thing I could do he said:  "Well, I guess I'll use my credit card to pay for the gas."  I am NOT making this up!