STORY
BEHIND THE POEM “OOPS”
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We
were working dayshift the other day. There was a big
special project going to start the process of cleaning up the open drug market
in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. It was getting
later in our shift and both the early afternoon shift (Charlie) units and
the late afternoon shift (Delta) units had come out.
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As
a result there was probably over one hundred people
monitoring Channel Two that day. Now stuck microphones
are not unusual and there have been some pretty funny things inadvertently
broadcast as a result. It’s just that normally it
happens late at night when everyone is tired and so very few people get to
hear the actual broadcast. The broadcasts are also
usually garbled and hard to hear.
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Unfortunately
for Jim Karabelas (featured
in the poem 176 Jimmy The Greek), this happened
with everyone listening. With our new state of the
art digital radio system, everything came over crystal clear.
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The
actual conversation took place with Audrey Hansford trying to get a unit
to respond to a call. This was not an emergency call
by any stretch, and Jim advised that he would be tied up at headquarters
for a couple of minutes before heading out. A couple
of updates on the call came in and Audrey broadcast them for Jim’s benefit.
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Jim
got a little exasperated, as he was “busy” doing his little errand and told
her he would be a couple of minutes and that he was at headquarters. Unfortunately, his mike stuck open. You
can hear Jim talking to someone, with a noticeable echo in the background. At this point he says. “I’m going to have to send her
a message and tell her I’m standing here with my radio in one hand, and my dink in the other”.
.
Audrey
is then frantically calling Jim to advise him his mike is stuck open. Apparently the message got through, but while his mike
is still jammed open you hear Jim say “Oh shit”. Audrey
then comes on the air and tells Jim, “now that we know you are in the bathroom,
can you take this call?” To which another unit comes
on the air with the comment, “classy bunch you have over this side”.
Jim
then phoned Audrey to apologize, to which she responded, “I just don’t want
to know what you were using to key your mike”.
.
Jim’s
faux pas has to rank in the top ten of all jammed mike stories, and as a
result a new poem is born.
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