'Round the County: People and other animals can be funny
People have been known to call 911 in Marion County to ask how to get rabbits out of their garden. Also, around Thanksgiving, how to baste a turkey.
Deana Olsen, office manager for Emergency Medical Service in Marion County, said she gets some funny calls, too. And it's hard to get people to stop talking, she said, even if they are told they have the wrong county department.
They can be told they have the ambulance department, and they'll still go on about wanting roads and bridges, or the county treasurer's or county clerk's office.
Or, they'll ask about the status of their account, or maybe start telling "personal stuff."
"They give me no name, and I haven't a clue," Olsen said. "I guess since 'A' for ambulance is first, some people assume this is the catch-all county office.
"But we're not the county business office. This is not the place to find out about taxes or how much a truck tag costs. And it's not the place to call to change your appointment with your probation officer."
The Olsens farm two miles west of Marion, and raise miniature horses. One foal was born one year that just couldn't keep up with the others.
"She got a thorn in her lip once, and has a heart murmur, a hole in her heart," Olsen said. "She doesn't have a lot of stamina. We give her an aspirin a day, like a person with some heart trouble.
"She's a yard horse. We call her Snickers. She wanders footloose and fancy free, like a dog. She's a sweetheart."
They also have a Doberman pinscher that likes to sit on an inexpensive plastic chair that's too small for her. The canine has a "hangover" on both sides, therefore, but loves that chair.
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A co-worker's grandchild said to her the other day, at her home, "Grandma, you don't have any kids, do you?"
Hmmm, Buster. Where the heck do you think you came from, huh?
I went to see my sister in Ortonville, Mich., nearly three years ago. She told her four-year-old granddaughter that her "little brother" was coming for a visit. Brianna apparently thought I would be a youngster who would play games with her.
When she met me, she looked up in amazement at how "unlittle" Grandma Valda's "little brother" was!
Brianna's uncle, Bill Allen, my nephew, also now of Ortonville, is now 50. When he was about three years old, Bill had a love affair with television. Couldn't stop watching. Visiting us at Ransom, he came bouncing from the living room into the kitchen to tell us that something had "the approval of a seal." Think he meant the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
Another time when a service station commercial on TV said, "If you can't stop, wave," Bill affirmed that they meant, "Sure, if your brakes don't work!"
— JERRY BUXTON
