Rotary Dial Telephone Poem by Civ Clegg

Some people they don’t half surprise you,
Conservative one minute,
Then a lizard the next,
Their lizard tongue tickling your ear and making it’s way down your neck.
She turned my brain into a wet paper towel
Then hurtled it at the wall
She turned my sunny afternoon stroll
Into a midnight drug dealing, innocent passer-by murdering, free for all
She set my house on fire,
But stole the number 9 button so I couldn’t make the all important call,
Meaning I had to use the non-emergency 101 alternative,
Which was initially advantageous as I have one of those old-fashioned rotary dial telephones,
However the principal saving of time was far outweighed,
By the non-emergency manner,
In which the operator dealt with my dilemma,
He was more concerned with the “far too serious a nature of the situation I seemed to be in,
For the non-emergency facility - which I had opted to contact – in order to deal with it”
All of which he strived to make clear,
While irritatingly, my death was getting uncomfortably near,
My lungs were filling with smoke,
Causing my vision and overall alertness, to become hugely impaired
Plus the lapse in my attention, being provoked
By the realization that it would be impossible to actually steal the number 9 button from an old-fashioned, rotary dial telephone,
And that by exploiting the plastic partition between the number 8 and 9 on the dial,
You could just simply pretend that the integrity of the finger hole is fine,
All the while,
Allowing your finger to stop the dial at the right place and time.
Realizing such,
I wondered if I should perhaps hang up,
Put some of that glaringly obvious logic to good use,
I must admit that I did feel sorry for the innocent victims,
Those actually reporting non-aggressive, possible disturbances of property,
From a suitably safe distance down the street,
Or even providing a retrospective report,
Of food poisoning caused by poorly handled meat,
A burst water main,
Backed up sewer drain,
Or incorrect street name,
Or even a lollypop lady, prostrate on the crossing, due to temporary back and/or ankle pain/sprain.
Sending motorists and pedestrians alike into a diabolical state of minor irritation,
Toward the non-emergency manner of any of the above situations.
Not to mention all those poor little cats,
Up the next-door neighbors sycamore,
Petrified and clinging for their lives,
I could just about see the little ginger colored tom,
In his defense he was gesturing to the fireman,
Telling them to forget about him and save me,
Being very quite particular on the point that he wasn’t actually stuck,
But just came up here for a look,
And that he’s a cat,
Known for their brilliant skills at climbing,
And that he was in fact,
Becoming rather irked by the scene being caused,
All because the old lizard woman next door,
Couldn’t appreciate the difference in urgency
Between a man being burnt alive and a cat lounging a mere eight, maybe nine foot up a tree,
So much so that the old lizard woman had in fact dialed 999 to report the mortal danger of the poor feline,
Meaning that the fire brigade came straight out
Where as:
“Due the fact that they were experiencing a high volume of calls,
All non-emergency situations – such as mine,
Would be followed up and dealt with, in due time.”
It was only when I told the operator exactly what I thought,
Shouted, “believe me officer, when I die alone in this room,
Which, in about the next 30 seconds, I most certainly am going to do,
I’m going to come back as a disgruntled ghost and file a strongly worded compliant about you!
Then I hung up to carry on dying,
And only then realized that I could have just dialed 112.