Please Don’t Call 9-1-1 If Your Chicken McNugget Order Takes Too Long

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There are a number of completely adequate and understandable reactions to have when your fast food doesn’t arrive, well, fast: ask for a refund, talk to a manager, or wait patiently. One thing that’s not acceptable? Calling 9-1-1 to complain. Yet, that’s exactly what a Texas woman recently did at McDonald’s. 

12 News Now reports that Waco, TX, police received an unusual call last week from a woman who claimed McDonald’s was taking too long to fulfill her chicken nugget order.

The incident occurred around 11 p.m. Friday when the woman used the drive-thru at McDonald’s to order chicken nuggets.

When the meal didn’t arrive in a timely enough manner for the woman, she asked for a refund. After employees denied the refund, the woman said she wouldn’t leave.

After refusing to move her vehicle and reportedly becoming confrontational with workers, a McDonald’s manager called 9-1-1 reporting a distraught customer.

Police tell 12 News Now that they were on the way to the restaurant when they received a second call, this time from the customer.

“And she calls us and the true complaint there was, her nuggets were not cooked fast enough,” Waco Sergeant Patrick Swanton tells 12 News Now. “That’s not something you want to tie police service on Friday night at 11 o’clock at night.”

In the end, police defused the situation and the woman was able to get her money back. However, she left without the nuggets.

This isn’t the first time individuals have used 9-1-1 as their personal sounding board for complaints, or otherwise tied up authorities for no good reason:

• June 2011 — Police in Georgia reminded residents not to call 9-1-1 to complain about a wrong Chinese food order by printed a transcript of the call for all to see.

• Sept. 2011 — A Florida man was arrested after drunkenly calling 9-1-1 to complain that Taco Bell refused to serve him tacos.

• Nov. 2011 — An Illinois man was arrested after police say he called police five times asking to be transferred to AppleCare.

• June 2012 — Authorities in Connecticut remind residents that 9-1-1 is not a sandwich complain hotline, after a man did just that.

• April 2013 — A New Hampshire woman was arrested two weeks after police say she dialed 9-1-1 for help ordering her chines food.

• Feb. 2014 — A Burger King customer called 9-1-1 to complain about her bad experience. The police did show up, but not to help her get a new order. Instead, they arrested the woman for disorderly conduct. They also found she was wanted in another state.

• June 2014 — A Florida man called 9-1-1 to complain his wife had thrown out his beer.

• Aug. 2014 — A woman suspected of swiping a cell phone from a man at a gas station parking lot in Seattle called up to report that the guy was following her, and accusing her of — what else? — taking his phone.

• Aug. 2014 — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department blasted Facebook users for calling the office to complaint about an outage.

• March 2015 — An Idaho man dialed up 9-1-1 a dozen times claiming that the bar he’d just been booted from had overcharged him for his beers.

• July 2015 — Police in Pennsylvania say a man lied about having chest pains because he just wanted some help fixing his AC.

• July 2016 — Police and fire departments issued a warning to Pokémon Go players asking them to refrain from calling them asking to hunt game characters inside their buildings.

• Nov. 2016 — A guy called 9-1-1 to report that his nonexistent daughter needed help just because he was locked out of his hotel room.

• Jan. 2017 — Australia authorities were contacted by a woman complaining that her drug dealer instituted an unfair price hike for her week.

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