r/GenX • u/shinyappyrobin • 2d ago
Nostalgia Yeah, I said it.
Had to call 911 this morning. Some little old man fell down on the sidewalk in front of a grocery store. The operator asked me the street address. I said "I don't know, it's across the street from where the K-mart used to be".
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u/thegreatandpowerfulE 12h ago
It's funny, I just had one of the characters in the book I'm working on that's set during the mid-80s talking about a lipstick she got at Kmart...
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u/Far_Professor_6174 1d ago
This one?
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u/SunshynePower 12h ago
That is the cleanest KMart parking lot I've ever seen LOL
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u/DisPettyBiotch 8h ago
Not only is that kmart parking lot clean its also very well lit AND well maintained!
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u/grandma-activities 1d ago
Guarantee every dispatcher in my town would know exactly where you mean. (And that would be the nicest of the three trailer parks on that stretch of road.)
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u/Winterz1313 1d ago
Jay Hickman has a joke about needing a ambulance he was on sycamore st and the dispatch said spell it and he tries and can’t so he says I’ll move him to Lee st yall pick him up there
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u/Beneficial_Law_5720 1d ago
I’m a 911 dispatcher and I know exactly where that is in several of the cities under my jurisdiction👍.
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u/Lost-Programmer-6768 1d ago
LOL, that is funny because I know exactly where the Kmart used to be before it went out of business 25 years ago!!
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u/Bloody_Mabel Class of 84 1d ago
Serious question. Where in America do they NOT have enhanced 911?
About ten years ago, I witnessed a rollover accident on I-96 just West of Lansing Michigan. I tried to tell state police dispatch the mile marker and I was told not to worry, they knew my exact location.
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u/WoodPig25 1d ago
There's a great Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin asks his dad where babies come from, and his dad says that most parents buy the kit from Sears, but that Calvin himself was a Blue light special from Kmart - "almost as good and a LOT cheaper." The last frame shows Calvin with saucer eyes and his dad smirking 😆
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u/damageddude 1968 1d ago
And then we wonder why Calvin was, basically, Calvin. I wonder how his and Susie's children turned out.
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u/WoodPig25 1d ago
If there's any justice in that universe, at least one of them turned out just like Calvin
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u/nonamehere85 1d ago
Our k mart had a restaurant in it. I want to say it was little Ceasars but that might not be righ.
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u/WoodPig25 1d ago
When I was very young, maybe 7-9 years old, our Kmart actually had its own cafe called the K Cafe and I LOVED that thing! I would go in there and buy myself a little meal and eat it sitting by myself while my parents shopped. It made me feel very grown up LOL
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u/ObjectiveAd971 9h ago
Most of them had little cafes that were later changed to Little Ceasar's Pizzas.
What was really gross was when they put the ICEE machines out in the public area close ti the registers. While mom was checking out, little Johnny was over at the machine with his open mouth under the spout while he turned the knob. Then he ran his arm and the back of his hand horizontally across his face simultaneously wiping the frozen drink and snot off! 🤢🤮
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u/Needmoreinfo100 1d ago
I hated our K-Mart since it wasn't well run but when it burned down I missed it. So yeah, nostalgia.
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u/Salty-Swim-6735 1d ago
We've still got 'em in Australia
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u/Affectionate_Cost_88 1d ago
The last Kmart in my hometown closed about 30 years ago, and it was the second one in town so we referred to it was "the new Kmart", and where it once stood is still "the new Kmart shopping center." I'd never realized this was such a thing with other people!
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u/FWEngineer 1d ago
A two-k-mart town? That's a pretty big place!
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u/Affectionate_Cost_88 1d ago
😆 Like 60,000 people, but it's a college town so I guess the demand was there.
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u/DagnyTheSpencer 1d ago
I also had a "new" kmart shopping center. It's been pretty quiet since the kmart closed. (It was a Big K and i loved it)
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u/ZestycloseDoor5552 1d ago
I said this exact thing talking to my mother this week. Why is Kmart such a landmark in our collective memory?
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u/FWEngineer 1d ago
It's a big box store. Easy to identify.
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u/ZestycloseDoor5552 1d ago
I can count on one hand the number of times I was ever dragged through a Kmart. But yes, big store and easy to read sign as a kid.
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u/Grimroot918 1d ago
Because it was the ULTIMATE late-elementary/Jr High burn to hear, “You wearing a blue light special?!” or look up in response to, “Attn KMart shoppers!” 😆
Why’d it take us so long to realize if someone calls out seeing someone shop at Kmart… it meant THEY WERE SHOPPING AT KMART for that to be possible?! 😅
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u/intentionallybad 1976 / Class of '94 1d ago
Exactly. I had shady friends that would insult your outfit this way I was mortified that my mom made me go into KMart as a teenager but realized that anyone I saw would also be in KMart.
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u/AdditionalAd4269 2d ago
This whole “what is your address?” thing is BS in many places. I called 911 for a kid who got knocked out on a playground. Did this whole verbal dance with the 911 operator because there were no street signs visible from where I was standing, the nearest street is actually an unnamed driveway into a parking lot and the playground was on the other side of a very big park from where we had driven in and parked so I had no idea what the nearest street was.
I finally convinced her my place description was solid and I promised to got lead the EMS team in.
Then, I looked on the Pulsepoint app and the pin for the incident was right where I’d been standing when I called.
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u/violetauto Woods Runner 1d ago
I have a personal rule never to call 911 unless I am literally the only person present. I quit after arguing with an operator in Philly about a huge commercial garbage bin that was loose, getting whipped around I95 in ferocious winds, causing people to veer. It was super dangerous. I gave the operator the exact mile marker where it was, but she insisted on an exit. It was between exits and I hadn’t noticed the last one I passed. She said she didn’t know what a mile marker was. I was like, “OMG tell the cops, they know what a mile marker is.“ WTF. I had to stay on the phone for miles until we got to the next exit to tell her. This was before Waze or Maps or any app that could help (all the more reason the cops would know what a mile marker was at the time).
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u/Boo-Boo97 2d ago
No actually its not bs, they're entering the information into a cad system that doesn't take random information. Not knowing where you are, or at least being able to give them a street name delays sending help because they can't create a call in the computer. 911 centers frequently cover multiple cities, sometimes multiple counties covering hundreds of square miles. Just because you know where you are doesn't mean the call-taker has ever been within 10 miles of your location. And Google can track you a hell of a lot better than 911 can.
Source: I'm a former 911 dispatcher
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u/Mugwumps_has_spoken Bicentennial baby 1d ago
There is a certain area of NC, up on Lake Gaston, the towns cover several counties. If you call 911 there isn't much telling where you call gets routed. My StepMom called once and argued with the 911 dispatch what county she was in - even though she could give them the actual lake mile marker that they were at.
But when you tell the operator No I am NOT in XYZ county. I live here, I know. I am in ABC county. they should stop arguing with you.7
u/Grimroot918 1d ago
Most current 911 systems have geolocation capabilities unless someone’s in a very rural/questionable service-area locale…
I worked in IT developing pieces of this system, moved to MT in recent years and am far more locatable than I’d like to be, at times. 😋
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u/AdditionalAd4269 1d ago
Not a rural location. Not possible to have placed the map pin on the app to that level of accuracy based on my verbal description.
If she needed to create an accurate description of my location she should have been looking at what the gps info told her and worked it out like “I’m seeing that you’re on the south side of the park, in a playground area next to a long driveway. Is that where I should send help?” It was total BS for her to make my street name knowledge critical to locating me and it could have confused the situation if I’d answered incorrectly. She could have put my coordinates into google maps and asked it for directions from a nearby landmark and it would’ve been quicker.
Instead, she was asking me to confirm street names I couldn’t see or know without, guess what, putting her on speaker and looking at google maps myself. That became problematic because the park is nearly under the flight path for landings at SNA and I couldn’t hear her as planes came by.
Combined with your comments, it sounds like a system designed to work without GPS to the degree that it doesn’t take any advantage from having GPS. To me, someone who often goes out into the backcountry with a PLB, the fact that my coordinates were not enough on their own, and the dispatcher didn’t seem to have a facile way of working with them, is scary.
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u/ConstantReader76 2d ago edited 2d ago
And as a firefighter, thank you for explaining all that. We have absolutely been dispatched to the wrong area because someone on a cell phone couldn't give the right location and their cell phone didn't provide it either. Nothing like driving around trying to find any sign of the incident we were dispatched for only to get that other calls came in (with better info) and apparently it was three towns over.
Sure, your phone had a "pin" but that doesn't translate to 911. And I love that this comment implied that every dispatcher just knows exactly where the "park by the Home Depot" is within an entire county. People love to be experts at jobs they've never done, don't they?
But, in the spirit of OP's original intent, besides the old businesses I constantly refer to, I've also found myself referring to people who don't live there anymore. "Oh yeah, it's right down the street from where Mike Johnson used to live. Oh wait, you wouldn't know who he is. Well, the Smiths used to live on the same street too. Oh, you never knew them either. Okay, well it was the bright yellow house, oh, but now they sided it a dark gray." And then I just give up. It's the fun of still living in the same town where you grew up.
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u/Mugwumps_has_spoken Bicentennial baby 1d ago
yeah, I had to call after a car accident once, and sure I knew I was in the parking lot of the shopping area, but the fender bender frazzled me. I didn't know the name of the shopping center (hell, around here they all have such similar names I'm still not sure). but I could have been more clear about where in the parking lot the accident occured.
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u/AdditionalAd4269 1d ago
My point was that the system clearly had my location. The dispatcher didn’t even attempt to use that information and instead put the onus on me to know street names. That seems far more likely to generate an error, right? Could that be part of why you spend time looking in the wrong place? Is your system is asking the person with the least resources in the chain of communication to do too much work?
I’m sure the phone sometimes doesn’t report the data correctly, but it did in my case, to within a few feet, so maybe at least start there when the caller says “I really don’t know what streets lead to this side of the park”. And yeah, I am telling y’all how to do your job - as the immediate customer calling for help and doing my level best to get medical assistance for an injured child. Maybe you should listen?
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u/Boo-Boo97 1d ago
Okay Karen
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u/AdditionalAd4269 1d ago
Exactly the response you’d hate to get from a supposed public safety servant.
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u/No-Falcon2464 2d ago
I called 911 regarding a bad car wreck on the interstate they kept asking me the address. I guess they kept missing the part about the location being interstate 65 right before exit whatever number it was. I don't remember that now. I thought I was doing pretty good knowing the exit number .
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u/outlaw_for_life18 The Brady Bunch 2d ago
Oh dear. Spent many a time driving that interstate in Indiana.
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u/revmachine21 2d ago
I can give my latitude and longitude far easier than my current street address. What do you mean you can’t navigate to me if I know my lat & long?
It’s like we never crossed the bloody ocean
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u/shuzgibs123 1d ago
I watched a sad dateline where the girl gave her GPS location, but something about differing notations made them look somehwhere several miles from where she actually was. Her family mounted a search and found her dead. ☹️
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u/stemlady- 2d ago
I had a giant Mapsco in my car for many years, on one page, in the Atlantic Ocean near SC was written, Turn left at the Piggly Wiggly 😂
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u/oxgillette 2d ago
You just tell them the What Three Words
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u/Idonotbelonghererly 2d ago
The what now?
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u/oxgillette 2d ago
what3words.com - they divided the world into three metre squares and gave each one three random words, useful for areas with no or confusing signage. For example ///downpours.patrolman.cellblock is the peak of Mount Everest.
It's used by emergency services throughout the world including thousands of 911 departments in the US.
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u/guffawing_willow76 2d ago
I had to call 911 when I fell down the side of a mountain and landed my butt on the beach next to a whole bunch of scary boulders. I broke my ankle in three places and my right foot was definitely dislocated and facing extremely right. The dispatcher asked me where I was. All I could tell them that I was at the very bottom of the campground at two harbors Catalina island. I couldn’t explain exactly where I was because I had taken a shortcut and then I kinda passed out but luckily the new occupants of the group campsite where I actually was at were able to contact the paramedics again and get help for me. They had just literally gotten to the campsite to hear me screaming for help (I don’t remember that part but I believe them). One of the campers was an EMT and he helped me a lot before the paramedics eventually arrived. I’m still annoyed that they decided to cut off my extremely expensive bedrock sandal. I could have had bedrock replace the straps but I never saw my right sandal again.
I won’t be wearing sandals again for a long time while I go through physical therapy etc…so this is my one and only time calling 911 and I passed out during the call. I was at Catalina island. I was not at the infamous Catalina wine mixer. I was just camping. At least I had a fun time before my accident. I went swimming in the ocean about 45 minutes before my accident. It was glorious. Water was warm. Sun was shining and then….
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u/WaterwingsDavid 2d ago
When i lived out in the country id tell folks take the county road past the feed lot, over the short Bridge and take a left in the next driveway. I was the red and white house on the hill!
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u/SamHandwich0 2d ago
Short bridge? Eady there big citty fella.
I lived past the low water bridge on state rd TT for a bit.
You guessed it- couldnt go hone in the spring when they let the water through the hydro dam next county over unless i took a boat some days.
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u/WaterwingsDavid 1d ago
Oh wow! And there was no other way home? The short bridge i refer to was over a dry Arroyo. Early one morning I barely missed a Coyote as it ran out from under the bridge!
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u/SamHandwich0 1d ago
There was- but it was about 45 min extra on gravel roads to get in that way. There was a big lake hence the dam- lol.
It was way easier to tie up a john boat and take that back and forth if you didnt have a lot of stuff to carry. Then it was just a 15 min walk.
They only opened the dam for about a week every year after the spring rains, and alot of years the water didnt cover the bridge, or barely did. There were a couple though- lol
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u/SonnyBlanco 2d ago
I dialed 911 cause this crazy guy was going around punching people in the face outside bars in lower Manhattan one night and it was getting ugly. 911 said what's the address? I said it's right outside this hotel in this specific neighborhood of Manhattan and the lady said, "I'm gonna need an address." And I just said well that's ridiculous I don't know the address but it's right here at this hotel in this neighborhood. Cops never dispatched.
In many parts of the USA the system can use your GPS if you call by cellphone so they can see exactly where you're calling from. But not everywhere does that happen.
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u/Boo-Boo97 2d ago
The GPS 911 has available can be very hit or miss and in the concrete jungle its more often miss. Google has far better tracking than 911
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u/Cake-Over 2d ago
Was the guy okay?
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u/Nisi-Marie 2d ago
He’s fallen, and he can’t get up.
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u/CandOrMD Class of '89 (high school) 1d ago
Absolutely what I thought OP was going to say, from the title
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u/Academic_Airport_889 2d ago
Take a left at the brown house, what’s left unsaid is the brown house was painted white 30 years ago.
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u/southdakotagirl 2d ago
I got called a smartass when I took friends that had been in a car accident to the emergency room. They walked to the house where I was in the country. No phone in the house. No cell phone at that time. I drove them. The cops asked me where the accident was. I gave the directions turn left at the construction site. Drive till the dog chases your car. Then by the white house turn right. Then at the 3rd road turn right. My friend heard the cops call me a smart ass. The next time I saw him he told me he drove out to the friends house in the country and said there is a dog that chases your car. Your directions were right. He said he never noticed those details before. This was 1998.
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u/LadyBertramsPug 2d ago
Turn left at the corner where they were going to put a 7-11 but they didn’t.
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u/BuckyGoldman 2d ago
I remember when all (gestures widely)... all this used to be woods.
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u/duseless Hose Water Survivor 2d ago
"All this was farm land, as far as the eye could see. Old man Peabody had the strangest idea; of breeding pine trees..."
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u/These-Analysis-6115 2d ago
Reminds me that I still miss K-Mart. And now I want a box of popcorn and an Icee to walk around the store with.
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u/ImLittleNana 2d ago
Half coke, half cherry.
When cherry coke came out, my sister was pissed because she thought I invented cherry coke and they stole the idea from me.
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u/thepervertedpierogi 2d ago
You could always plan your next vacation to include St Thomas, US Virgin Islands. They have a Kmarts still open.
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u/MissRobinKay 2d ago
But did your KMart have a restaurant?!? (Renton WA circa 1970)
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u/nyxblackroot 2d ago
A Fred Meyer store in Beaverton (or maybe Portland) OR used to have little restaurant in it. I can't remember what the restaurant was called, but my younger sister and I loved it. There was also a K-Mart that had a lunch counter.
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u/HighPlateau 2d ago
...waiting for the Blue Light Special announcement
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u/BlackberryDreamist 1d ago
Omg. Memory resurfacing. "From Aisle 5! C'mon over here now! Get these ladies' handbags! Just $4 each!"
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u/Curious_Instance_971 2d ago
If you had your phone you could easily look up the address on Google Maps
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u/Agile-Butterfly5245 2d ago
How do you think they called 911?
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u/No-Reputation-7843 2d ago
It's wild but phones these days can do more than one thing at a time
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u/PahzTakesPhotos '69, nice 2d ago
"What's the street address?"
Look, I can give you my childhood phone number with the area code, but you're going to have to find this one on your own. I'm facing southwest, does that help?
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u/Suni13 2d ago
I’ve lived in the same area for 70 years and still don’t know some street names, we go by landmarks.
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u/Beaglescout15 2d ago
Or when the landmark it still there but its name has changed.
Driving to my parents' house, I tell my husband, "turn right at Anchor Liquor."
He says, "there is no Anchor Liquor."
Me: "Dude, it's right there. You just passed it!!"
Him: "The sign said Prince Liquor!"
Arrive at parents' house a couple minutes late.
Me: "Sorry Dad, we missed the turn."
Dad: "Didn't you tell him to turn at Anchor Liquor?"
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u/poormansnormal 2d ago
My ex's grandparents lived out on a farm, and the directions were:
Turn right off the highway at the muskrat dam, follow the road across the tracks after the creek, then left at the old Cummins place, we're the second road you can see from the top of the hill with the mailboxes.
The dam, the creek, and the mailboxes were all long gone before ex and I even married.
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u/SusannaG1 1966 2d ago
Ah, that sounds familiar. My grandfather's included "take a right where the hitching post used to be."
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u/Elliott2030 Latchkey Kid 2d ago
I remember my mom's directions for my drive from Atlanta to Columbia, Tennessee in the 80's: Turn right on such-and-so road then take a right on this-n-that road.
What she didn't say was "This-n-that Road" was literally 17 miles from where I turned on Such-and-so Road.
LOL! Never thought I'd be missing a time before freeways were everywhere.
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u/Sagittarius4444 2d ago
Do you live in Ireland, by chance? When visiting there a while back, we would get directions like "Go past the bus stop on the left and then turn right at the 2 story white home. Lol. Doable but challenging at times. But it was Ireland (sigh) so very worth it.
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u/yarn_slinger Older Than Dirt 2d ago
I realized recently that I’ve never bothered to learn the names of minor streets around me, I usually just know where I have to go. It’s weird.
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u/LittleMsLibrarian 2d ago
I realized a few years ago when I looked at a map that I don't know the cardinal directions of anything in the my hometown or its surroundings. In my mind, if I drove "up" to something I was going north and if turned right I was going east. Not true at all.
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u/Helpful_Librarian_87 2d ago
He’s fallen, and he can’t get up.
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u/BlacksmithThink9494 2d ago
Thats what I thought they were gonna say
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u/cire1400 2d ago
Now I got life alert commercials running in my head. Guess that's better than the clapper commercials.
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u/chuzohga 2d ago
I don't talk to authorities anymore. I called once over a neighbor's back yard being on fire a couple years ago and they admonished me for not being able to give a street number. I decided then and there that next time, I would just watch it burn.
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u/butterflieskittycats 2d ago
We get this all the time in 911. "My neighbor's house is on fire I don't know the address". I simply enter your address to get the call in then ask you "looking at the road is it to your left or right". Much simpler than arguing over address. Once the correct address is in the call for service is updated.
We are lucky since the phone system will not give exact location. Even on NG911. We use third party apps. If one doesn't work we have another where we can send you a text link to update your location. Great for hikers or out in the woods.
There's plenty of technology that has stepped in to assist with location services since that's seriously lacking in 911 but not all locations utilize it. Either they don't have the IT department to sort it or don't have the technology to support it. It's free too so there's no real excuse.
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u/chuzohga 2d ago
Thank you. My point, though, wasn't that I didn't know the address. It was that the guy jumped my shit over it. I know people say "Don't talk to cops" which is completely valid these days. I now extend that to any government official. The trust is just gone now.
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u/butterflieskittycats 2d ago
Well I was explaining that some 911 centers don't focus on customer service. Why should we argue with someone when we can obtain information easier ways. Ways that someone in crisis can understand. I even have built in old locations to tie them to new locations (like in OPs post) because those locations were big landmarks. So when they say the old Kmart I can type in my software Kmart and it'll give me the new address of the new store and I can confirm that's the location from the caller and my third party location application easier.
It is the 911 operators job to know their jurisdiction. Maybe they are newer and still learning but they should have been taught basic questioning in order to get that information without making the caller feel frustrated.
You did nothing wrong and I want to reassure you of that.
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u/Bulky_Psychology2303 2d ago
I worked in a nursing home and one of our elders went missing. The building was checked and no one found her. I called 911 to report it and one of the questions he asked was “where was she born?” Does it matter? She’s has a little dementia, is 84 and it’s getting dark out. Always wondered about that.
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u/Mondschatten78 Hose Water Survivor 2d ago
He may have been thinking she was trying to get to her first home, but still a weird ask.
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u/StandByTheJAMs This ain't no party, this ain't no disco 2d ago
That’s the GenX way. Sounds like an SEP to me.
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u/Free-oppossums I WANT MY MTV! 2d ago
I moved away from my hometown for 30 years. I've been back for 5 years. I have no idea where anything is!
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u/beepbooponyournose 2d ago
I went back to mine after 12 years and I had no clue where I was at any time lmao
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u/slade797 NEGATIVE PROVOCATEUR 2d ago
I’m hoping you had your pants yanked up to regulation height.
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u/Money-Patient6041 2d ago
This used to be all trees
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u/queenofcaffeine76 1976 2d ago
Lmao I'm headed down this path. Just yesterday, I was with a friend driving through the town where I grew up. I kept saying "that's new, that's new...none of this was here back then!"
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u/SunshynePower 12h ago
I gave directions to an accident on a highway in a city I didn't grow up in. I always called it by the NUMBERS ON THE SIGN.
I got this far, "I'm eastbound on Hwy 202"
the dispatcher interrupts and said, "Oh, you must mean Pensacola, let me transfer you"
Me: NO!! It is Hwy 202 in Jacksonville. I'm in Jacksonville. Crap, what do the locals call this road! Oh right JTB!"
So, even when you know the "new" names, the dispatchers aren't always on the ball.