Interesting Phone Calls –or – Expensive Drugs, and Scaring Children

This is an old post that never made it on-line but funny as hell from my days at Channel Five.

Earlier this week different member of the Central New York law enforcement worked together to pull off one of the biggest drug busts in the history of the area.

State troopers, local police officers, and members of a crack drug enforcement team were able to arrest 13 people breaking up what they were calling one of the biggest drug rings in Onondaga County, essentially crippling the local drug trade.

Lofty claims- but they did recover a few million dollars, several guns and over a 100 pounds of good old Mary Jane.

So the district attorney holds a major press conference and values the recovered weed to have a street value of 13.5 million dollars.

Hell I can’t imagine a 100 pounds of marijuana let alone how much it could cost, but apparently someone could.

The day after we run the story we get a phone call, from someone who will remain unnamed we can call “Smokey Mc Pot”– who is checked into an unnamed rehab clinic.

Smokey calls up irate, saying that the estimated price we are reporting is way to high, and that you could never get 13 and a half million for a 100 pounds of wacky tobacco.

I’m not sure how many phone calls you can make while in rehab – but let me tell you I’m glad that at least one of Smokey’s calls was to us – to let us know the D.A. is over charging for his stash.

Also this week there was a report on how terrorist may target the milk supply since it is relatively unguarded and an easy target.

This is also around the same time when the second case of mad cow disease was discovered in Texas, so basically cows and everything coming from them is dangerous.

So we get a call from a mother saying her son won’t drink his milk or eat his cheeseburger because he is scared of a terrorist attack and mad cow.

Her son is eight, which is a little young to have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

So this major mom goes into a tirade about how we as the media should have more responsibility to its viewers not to make them scared to go out and live.

So I tried to explain to her that fear is natural and that we can’t let it stand in our way of living a normal life, because that would mean the terrorist would win.

I continued that the two cases of mad cow were detected early in cows called “downers” which means they were detected before slaughter and never made it into the food chain – which thankfully means I can still go out and get a steak today.

So I figured I explained everything pretty well and was giving this woman more then enough of my valuable time trying to placate her sons fears.

Then she asks me one more question: “can you tell him for me?”

I responded with a wee bit of surprise. She goes on to say that he wouldn’t believe her since he think she is just trying to get him to eat his food and stop complaining.

But if I did it since I was “The News” he would believe me.

Which is funny since I think less people trust the news – but since he was eight maybe he isn’t as jaded as the rest of the world.

So I tell the mother I will call her son back and tell her just what I told her she says thanks and then hangs up – and never gives me her number and never calls back.

I guess now she trusts the media a little less.