My family lived out in the middle of nowhere country and my sisters and I used to be home alone for a few hours after school while my mother worked. We usually spent 2.5 hours just lazily lounging around in our respective bedrooms until our mom got home.

On one such day I watching the Simpsons when my little sister(6 or 7) suddenly comes into my room with great alarm and says she hears loud banging at the door. It sounded like someone was trying to get in from the garage. I go downstairs and hear a male’s voice saying something while continuing to pound very loudly on the door. At this point I’m starting to freak out because we’re completely alone, with no neighbors. and I have watched enough America’s Most Wanted to know the most dangerous creeps are always on the lose. I run upstairs tell my sisters to hide or stay in their rooms and call mom. She stupidly tells me to go check it out despite me telling her the dude is in the garage. I’m not going to let him know there are kids here. I go into my younger sister’s room and look onto our driveway and country road to see if I can see anything useful....

This is when I spot three cop cars speeding down the road to our house and two park in our drive way. I panic as I think they’re after the man in our garage(maybe an escaped convict?). A few seconds later my mother calls me back and demands to know why there are cops at the house. She sounds really angry and demands I open the door. I go downstairs and see a cop on our side porch. Feeling a bit of relief, I open the side door to let him in. Without a beat, he asks if my step-father is home. I answered No. he then asks me why they were called and lets in his buddies and checks the house. I’m confused. My little sister is scared and my older mentally disabled sister is getting frustrated at all the commotion. After making sure that the house was clear they then turn to me and demand an explanation. I told them what I was doing before they showed up and have no idea why they’re here. They ask my younger sister. She says she didn’t call the cops. My older sister starts pointing fingers and making nonsensical lies about what happened even though she’s been in her room for almost the entire time. Since I’m the most sensible one out of the bunch, the cops suspect I called them and started scolding me. Accusing me of lying and wasting their time. My older sister joins in on the accusation and the cops are now even more convinced I’m guilty. My younger sister starts to cry. This whole debacle goes on for what felt like ten minutes.

They eventually leave. My mother comes home early and I get yelled at even more and then punished. The next evening I asked my younger sister to go over the events with me because I was still sore about the punishment and wanted to get a better idea of what happens. She then admits that she had pranked called the cops because someone on the school bus had dared her too. She said she hung up pretty quick and didn’t think they were going to show up. When they did she was scared that she was going to be arrested if they found out it was her.

Here is the thing her friends and she didn’t know when they made that dare...My stepfather was extremely abusive toward our mother and due to his behavior the cops were no strangers to our place(we would only hear them though because almost all of these fights happened at night and we knew better to stay in our rooms). When my little sister called them and then hung up that morning, they assumed it was another domestic call. They called back but no one answered. Two cops go out and do a wellness check. No answer. At this point they assumed the worse and thought my stepfather was involved. Knowing his violent tendencies they called for back-up. I think their extra rudeness came from pure frustration of dealing with our household.

Moral of the story: Don’t prank call the cops if you live in a super chaotic household!