Not all ideas are good ideas

I needed to do something easy today. This is one I nearly did from the road.

The timing of our trip was based on who could get time off when, and when things were open. It was not completely random that we started on Labor Day weekend, but it wasn't intentional either.

Going to a popular children's and water park on a hot Labor Day weekend had some drawbacks, one being that are hotel was at capacity and everything was very disorganized. With so many people, an ATM that was not only broken but kept getting referrals from the other property, and a web page that said breakfast was included but it wasn't, there would have been some chaos anyway, but there was something adding to it.

First some context. Our driver from the airport needed cash, so the broken ATM led to him taking my sisters to the gas station. This was around 10:30 at night. There was no reason for anything to go wrong - he had seemed very nice - but while I was waiting for them to get back a police car pulled up in front of the hotel.

I had just had the thought of whether he was in fact a dangerous killer a moment ago (though dropping off a witness before making his move would have been very sloppy), but I didn't panic for two reasons. One is that it was probably way too soon for a crime to have happened, been discovered, and next of kin be located and notified. Also, I had heard the girl at the desk talking on the phone.

I could only hear one side of two conversations, but she seemed to be confirming with a guest that their children had dialed 9-1-1, and then with 9-1-1 that is was just a child playing around and not a real emergency.

Still, the officer did come in, because he had to, and was talking with someone - I think a manager, but off duty - about it. It came out that the police had responded to the hotel twenty times since the change.

They did not specify the change, but I was pretty sure I knew:

http://nationswell.com/karis-law-making-easier-dial-911/

I've gotten a lot of prompts to sign this petition. In fact, I believe I have signed this petition. I don't think it's even a law in all states, but some chains are trying to comply anyway. Anyway, it turns out that there are a lot more children goofing around with phones than actual emergencies.

It's not that the situation inspiring the law was not real or serious. That doesn't mean that the law might not be somewhat reactionary. Police responding twenty times to false alarms doesn't make anyone safer. Maybe the solution is to require monitoring from the hotel. Maybe a better solution is to fight toxic masculinity.

My first thought was that maybe phones in hotel rooms need to be raised higher than children can reach, but in this case it was a child legitimately calling for help, and I have read many stories about children calling when their parents have medical emergencies. Children do need to have access and they do need to know how to use it. They also need to know not to goof around with it, but some things are harder to legislate.

My point is that sometimes things aren't well thought out. The heart is in the right place, so that appeals to us, and certainly signing an online petition doesn't take much work, but maybe it needs to be the right petition.

I am trying to read things more carefully now, and to think before I sign.  

For one thing, if what I am sending is a letter to my congresswoman, all that will happen is that I will get a response that she is not on that committee though she is aware of the issue. Even though I appreciate that it is now e-mail instead of paper - especially after that environmental one - I still find it annoying.

As always, I remain staunchly pro-thought.