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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net ⋅ 15h
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social ⋅ 2dDavid M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social ⋅ 22d
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ok I had to look it up for the well, actually
(well, actuallying myself: air force is not space forceYEAH BUT WOULD THE REQUIREMENTS NOT BE FAIRLY SIMILAR)
Welakshuly laser eye surgery maybe?
…please let this lead to a storyline about joyce getting laser eye surgery. That would be delightful in a decidedly schadenfreudian way.
If her insurance wouldn’t cover the fancy red frames Becky wanted her to get, I doubt it’ll stretch to the eye lasers.
Also, the doctors will take one look at the size of Joyce’s eyes and decide that the normal laser wouldn’t do the trick anyway, and they need to break out the big guns.
No insurance stretches to voluntary lasik. (And even good insurance also rarely covers much of the glasses frame cost; it’s better with covering lenses, but frames are an aesthetic preference that range from like $10 to $500+.)
Even so, I don’t see the girl who had to be talked down from puffs of air to the eye being totally cool with lasers in them.
Eh, I’ve found that insurance is generally pretty good at covering frame costs. Maybe not the $500 frames… but most frames I’ve been fine with.
Over here in the UK, those who are eligible get free eye-tests and (if necessary) vouchers towards the cost of buying glasses – of course you can choose more expensive frames or you may have a complex prescription anyway, both of which can push the end price up. “Eligible” is generally children, adults past state pension age (going up, currently 66, set to rise to 70 long before I get there), and unemployed/those on benefits.
On a separate note, going for my own eye-test today, so I hope the news remains good! (My only quirk thus far in my life was lazy eyes as a kid, which was fixed with a short stint in glasses and an eye-patch; as well as being stereoblind)
My vision plan covers basic lenses and a certain amount of the frame cost. If you want fancy lenses (thin plastic, anti-scratch, bifocals, Transitions, etc) or frames that cost more than they cover, you pay for it from an FSA or out of pocket.
My insurance will only pay for a specific range of frames. anything else and you’re paying for all of it, lenses and frames.
Huh, odd. In my country they do. At the end of the day it is cheaper than constantly dishing out for your glasses, so they go for it.
My US vision insurance covered voluntary LASIK. Not all of the cost, but they did cover it. I had to pay out of pocket something like 2500 or 3600 per eye.
Now I want a Julia Gray story where she gets cybernetic eyes that shoot lasers
Actually, during her first test flight, Julia got shot in the eyes with Jewish Space Lasers, and developed super-sight as a result.
With a special guest appearance by
EthanAllen, laser rifleman?Check what it says about eye surgery it the site Ana linked.
A friend of mine was in ROTC, and the Air Force paid for her to get PRK before she started pilot training, so it’s definitely within the realm of possibility.
Do you actually believe that Joyce, the same Joyce that freaked out when a puff of air entered her eye, would calmly sit, wide awake while someone inserted a plastic ring into her eye to keep it open and then point a laser into her eye? Do we really think she would sit there for that procedure? Because they can not knock you out for it since you have to focus the whole time on keeping your eye still and focused straight forward. Because if you are actually implying that Joyce would not have a massive freak-out at the very prospect, let alone the actual experience, you and I have been reading different comics.
Eyesight would be less important for flying a spaceship in my estimation, since you’re relying on the ship’s instruments to navigate rather than your own eyes
The eyesight requirement for being a pilot is largely around being able to read the instruments clearly.
And Joyce is nearsighted, so that shouldn’t be an issue.
(At least until she’s so nearsighted she can’t focus on things at an arm’s length anymore.)
Isn’t that the definition of near sighted?
That just means you can’t focus on the distance. Arm’s length and “mash your phone up against your nose” are just varying degrees of nearsightedness.
Joyce’s myopia is probably so slight, she sees without her glasses as well as I do with my three-year-old prescription.
Depends on the sort of spacecraft. Apollo’s computer guidance systems were calibrated using sightings taken by the astronauts.
http://public.media.smithsonianmag.com/legacy_blog/John-Young-glasses-400.jpg
Here, an astronaut, piloting a space ship while wearing glasses
Walky is talking nonsense.
And the guy in that photo, before flying the Space Shuttle (the spacecraft depicted in the image), walked on the freakin’ Moon!
All those requirement to bomb civilians.
Joyce: Ow, I think I just broke my toe again!
Sarah: (sudden unexplained orgasm)
Yeah, really.
Just looking at that last panel makes the tune to “Jizz in my Pants” play in my head.
Oh, what horrible things live in my head now due to memes.
Slipshine of a bunch of unfortunate things happening, like Walky faceplanting on a banana, and various cut scene panels of Sarah orgasming?
I smell snickerdoodles?
What level is this euphoria rn gah dang
Well at least Walky will be with Mike soon
May he rest in peace, if they can find enough pieces to lay Walky to rest.
Only a few nachitos will remain
One one hand this is a pretty pathetic argument over a 5 dollar a day comic strip gig, but on the other hand it’s keeping this Sarah happiness dream alive soo I’m conflicted.
It’s not about the money; it’s about the prestige! And also the money!
they *could* just team up for $2.50 a week each, since it sounds like Walky can’t write and Joyce can’t draw
or, maybe Sarah will attain enlightenment
She can draw dingdongs alright
Lol I haven’t really had anything to comment since the last grav pool change, but Joe is so accurate it’s killing me.
Joyce and Walky making a comic together would be extremely meta in a potentially fun way, but writing a webcomic and making someone else draw it is the lowest form of life and I think Joyce is better than that.
Never collaborate on anything creative unless everyone involved is equally good at every single aspect of that project.
So…. never ever work together on anything? Not really how life works.
And yes, I will defend the position that *everything* uses creativity. I may have to pull in a team and get creative, but this position is unassailable.
Yeah, really. Who ever heard of a comic having a dedicated artist and writer?
Can you imagine having as many as four people writing, drawing, inking, and lettering a work of fiction? What an absurd notion that would never happen in the professional sphere.
People who consume a lot of online media tend to romanticize the notion of the uncompromising solo auteur. Getting help doesn’t make you weak or lazy!
Joyce paid Mary in exposure, so…
Mary could’ve gotten plenty of that on her own, but she kept getting dressed for class.
Plenty of comic strips, panels and books, including some good ones, were produced exactly that way.
Sometimes it’s best for everyone to concentrate on their strengths. Not everybody can do everything.
‘Member the time Jim Davis did a livestream and had a Google image search for “Garfield” up on another monitor? I guess he needed a reference for how his assistants have drawn him for the last 25+ years.
I think Lar draws at least a couple different webcomics other people write.
why what is wrong with that? I read at least one web comic that is produced in that way. And it is pretty good.
There is nothing wrong with the artist/writer collaboration approach but it is very important that an artist gets paid and that’s my main peeve with this newspaper comic strip gig paying so little. Making even just a comic strip is not easy, even if you don’t have a high level of skill. And when splitting the work between art and writing, the art is usually the harder of the jobs. Writing even one sentence can translate to an entire page of work for an artist. That includes, sketching, inking, sometimes coloring, lettering, not to mention just figuring out the page composition and layout in the first place. And if you’re specifically trying to produce a comic you need art because comics are a visual medium. Otherwise just write a novel right? I could go on but the fact is if you’re trying to produce a comic as an artist/writer duo, you need to pay your artist. If you’re curious I recommend people read the manga Bakuman where a team of mangakas work in this exact way and the artist works himself so hard he ends up hospitalized. It’s really insightful and inspired by real experience in the manga industry.
I don’t know as much about newspaper comics or webcomics, but I know in the print comics world, where most are done by collaboration, writers often are able to write multiple titles, while artists are rarely able to keep up with more than one at a time. OTOH, writers often burn out on a title faster than artists.
In terms of day to day work it certainly seems that drawing a strip takes more time mechanically – you have to sit there longer producing the finished product. Don’t neglect the difficulty of the writing side either though, even if there’s less time typing.
Well in most traditional American comics the division of labor id divided up. Someone does the lines, another the inking. sometimes someone else does the backgrounds, someone else the colors, and even sometimes another guy just for the lettering. Just for one book. They all get paid. In webcomics and newspaper comics which are often seen as less labor intensive *even though they’re not* that all falls on the artist.
But this situation is unique because it’s not Joyce writing a comic and Walky drawing it as independents which would require her to pay Walky for visualizing her ideas depending on the specifics of their collaboration, but it’s the newspaper underpaying both of them for the value of the work made worse by their potential team up since they’d both be paid less because of it.
Well, they both get paid. It’s really the same situation – the paper pays them both. Poorly.
Not, the paper pays Joyce and she doesn’t pay or short changes Walky.
To be fair to the paper – it’s not exactly a big business raking in the profits. And while some have real promise, university paper comic strips are at best a mixed bunch.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen that specific take before. Not sure how two people working on different aspects of the project are the ‘lowest form of life’
I opposed the statement too, but on a little reflection, I suppose they’re only calling the writer the lowest form of life. And that is only if they *make* someone else draw it. So maybe it has less to do with the writing and more to do with compelling people. Or maybe even just compelling the drawer?
Besides, we all know the hierarchy of life goes: nothing, matter, lawyers, virus, cells+
Dunno. “The Meaning of Lila” was a good strip and I was really sad the day the author had to stop because paying the artist had become too expensive for him. I still wonder if Annie will be ok.
You got something against Penny Arcade?
And aren’t conventional comics produced by multiple people?
This comment is hare raising
I think I’ll have some saffron tea to calm my nerves
Back when I was involved in making a comic we had a writer (in New York), a continuity editor (in Canberra), a pencils artist (in Rome), an inker (in Toronto), and a letters guy (New York again). And I thought that was pretty much standard for the industry.
My money is on this happening. And honestly I really hope it does too.
Most comic books are indeed handled that way (in fact multiple folks) writer, letterer, artist, inker, colorist, etc. A lot of multimedia art(movies, musicals, etc) are collaborative. Though not really a collaboration as a joint effort.
Dreams: shattered
Sarah is going to have the absolute biggest happiness hangover once things revert to normal, isn’t she? it’s gonna be brutal.
I’m…scared of what she might do to re-obtain that high…very scared.
I miss when Walky was a frightening rage machine who was so bad at his alien fighting job that he once dropped his sister’s dead adoptive parents onto his boss.
What?
Walkyverse not dumbing of age
It’s Walky!, one of the old comics Willis did before Dumbing of Age, which was about Walky as a member of a barely secret government organization dedicated to fighting the forces of the Head Alien.
Absolutely one of my all time favourite webcomics.
http://www.itswalky.com/
(the Joyce & Walky! strip linked today is kind of apropos)
At least this Walky never got anyone killed.
Big Boss wasn’t anybody’s favourite character.
that we know of
Joyce was definitely on track to be a spaceship pilot before this moment.
Are you implying that she’s now not? That she’s now even more locked in due to reaffirmation of her goal? Or just sarcasm?
Anyone remember which comic she listed the things she wants to be?
I think you’re referring to this one?
and then walky was murdered
DAMN Walky! Right where it hurts!
Pretty sure Joyce’s gonna kick Walky in his grapes, which is also where it hurts.
Stone cold.
it’s like little miss sunshine all over again
shitdamnfuck. I had an empathy hangover from that scene for a year!
Gods that was painful.
First thing I thought when I read this strip. Damn.
Are the other girls in the same room, or can Sarah absorb schadenfreude(?) from a distance?
Also, as soon as I saw the word “dinosaurs” I immediately thought “Hey, where’s Dina”?!
Pretty sure Sarah and Dina are outside. So apparently it works at a distance.
Sunny action at a distance.
Weird, I never thought I’d imagine Einstein rolling over in his grave to give a golf clap.
There’s a wormhole carrying the vibes to Sarah from Walky and Joyce.
Faster than that. Quantum entanglement.
Somehow I still think the outcome will be Joyce and Walkky co-authoring the strips, as Joyce writing the stories and Walky drawing them…. Somehow…
Sarah’s a bit old for her mutant powers to first manifest, but I’m sure there will be a place for her amongst Charles Xavier’s students.
I mean, mutant power manifestation is pretty variable as to when? Most people get it between kid to teen, with a couple edge cases like Beast.
Okay, I know almost nil about the X-Men, so: Whose powers does Sarah’s most resemble?
Beats me these days.
*plays “Rocket Man” on the hacked Muzak*
Fab-u-lous!
Walky is *mean.* The way he just nonchalantly insults things people like or shatters their hopes and dreams without a second thought. Yeesh.
It’s almosike something Mike would have done.
“almost like”. I wish there was an edit function in here.
It’s ok. This is the internet. It will always provide a sarcastic twat to fix things for you.
“It’s almost like I wish there was an edit function in here.”
Fixed that for you.
…
But to be fair, I really like, “almosike.” It has a certain delicious, “ish-ness,” to it. I suspect I will deploy it myself in the near future.
Goddamn Walky’s assholery is really getting on my nerves. He walks all over Billie and now is antagonizing Joyce, who is already going through a hard time. What a great show of men unable to process their emotions and fears of inferiority so they turn it into cruelty to women.
Yeah he certainly was all over the lifelong friend who is now completely ignoring him and also the person he asked for paper to enter a contest who immediately snatched it back and said they were going to enter instead, there’s no possible reason for his snark besides [checks notes] sexism I guess
Lifelong friend who has made it clear she no longer wants to be friend (which he ignored). Don’t pretend Walky isnt sexist as hell – remember how he responded to Joe having more than one pair of shoes? Remember how he has a history of ignoring when a woman tells him to back off? So much so his sister had to tell him off?
Getouttahere. This is just him hitting peak sexist annoyance because he doesnt believe men are allowed to feel emotions.
You’re right, Walky’s had issues before, but I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of what happened with Billie. She DID say they’re not friends last time they spoke but before that she said ‘We’re not enemies, I’ve just been busy’ when he asked why she’d been ignoring him. Why shouldn’t he have continued acting like they were friends?
Also, Jennifer has a long history of pushing Walky away when she’s trying to climb the social hierarchy, only to come back to him when things come crashing down.
This has been their dynamic from day one and is obviously completely Walky’s fault. This time she’s actually fine and moving on, not just playing the same old games.
Yes, “this time.” You do know that is tantamount to, “I’m sorry baby, it won’t happen again.” Right?
Given how little we’ve seen if Billifer, I think we are a long *long* way from knowing that “this time” she’ll be ok.
Or if this is just my sarcasm detector being broken, huzzah, you got me. “It’s been jammed. It looks like, raspberry.”
Yeah, pretty sure that was sarcasm (this time).
Believe it or not, some people would have a hard time easily accepting their lifelong friend who’s practically a sibling to them wants nothing to do with them.
Maybe Walky has a right to be upset here but this situation is on him. He told Joyce about the contest which turned out to be a mistake. He should’ve went to Malaya or Mary but didn’t want to because they have the two worst personalities on the floor. Better yet he should’ve just stolen paper from the library like someone suggested yesterday. Joyce can snatch back that paper if she wants to. It’s her paper. That doesn’t make Walky telling her, her dream is impossible okay. Dude clearly has some issues going on.
Why don’t you give her a paper cut and rub lemon in it?
I. Love. Sarah.
People thought Mike being Walky’s roommate was being mean to Walky, but maybe it was the universe deciding he deserved it.
What does that imply about Booster?
Careful Sarah, that much joy and happiness might be a strain on your system. You aren’t used to these level of happiness, you might OD. Anyone know how much joy it takes to kill a person?
So, that was incredibly uncalled for.
This is gonna end with both of them losing to Rowley Jefferson’s renowned “ZOO-WEE MAMA” comic strips.
Or tommy chestnut or something
Sarah as…misery vampire? Hm. Whenever I get annoyed with her, I try to remember that I find the same behavior in Oscar the Grouch to be adorable, so.
We missed Halloween so I’m free to imagine that Sarah dressed up as Oscar and had a secretly great time being lauded for her commitment to character
Even people with bad eyes can generally see big things, and space is nothing if not huge, so I think Joyce is OK on this one.
Space isn’t big. It’s a place for stuff to be big IN.
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” ― Douglas Adams,
…Calling it now, Walky’s just trying to act like Mike.
That would be an interesting twist.
Yeah, I was beginning to think the same.
It seems to me like half the cast have been trying to act like Mike these days.
I don’t know why Walky is punching so hard here but I think Joyce can easily pivot from her spaceship pilot dream to something within the field. Like building spaceships! Maybe not as glamourous as being a spaceship pilot but without spaceships they’re just boring pilots anyway. Plus a spaceship mechanic look is just as good as a fighter pilot look. She could even still wear the aviators! Plus she’s good at math which maybe applies to spaceship design I don’t know. There! Dream saved!
The adjacent job to “astronaut” isn’t “building spaceships”, it’s something like “scuba diver”.
I think being a submarine operator would arguably be cooler than being a spaceship pilot. Less prestige, but astronauts don’t get to encounter sea monsters
Well I’m confused now. Is Julia Grey and astronaut or a spaceship pilot? Cause I assumed by them specifying “spaceship pilot’ that the dream was to pilot ships but in space. Like a modern jet pilot or what I assumed was something like an x-wing pilot in Star Wars which is technology we don’t even have yet and aren’t even sure would work like that. That’s why I suggested building them because the chances of her being a pilot like that were impossible anyway but developing and designing the technology to do so is a more achievable while also keeping in line with that passion for space flight.
Julia Gray is a spaceship -and- an astronaut pilot. And she’s an ace at both. And super cool.
Julia Gray maybe has an inside track on helping Elon Musk colonize Mars.
Plus a spaceship mechanic look is just as good as a fighter pilot look.
Fans of Agatha Heterodyne agree to the general idea of “woman in mechanic’s togs”.
Also, fans of Kaylee (in [i]Firefly[/i]).
Why on earth would eyesight be a requirement for space piloting. I mean. It’s space. It’s not like you can see shit.
I mean depending on the specifics of Joyce’s fantasy spaceships are a mostly theoretical concept anyway so piloting one depends entirely on variables we can’t fully imagine some of which that might not even exist yet, so we can’t really account for how visual acuity would be a factor, but the short answer is that Walky is being a dick.
Was for a longtime for regular piloting until planes became way more stable, its a thing about risks, just like flat foots in the military…
Arguably, fighter planes are actually becoming more UN-stable, as it increases agility at the cost of being harder to keep control.
You don’t even get a window to look out of.
I have been LOVING Sarah reaction to this new dynamic.
HAH!
Oh, I know this Sarah gag is going to come crashing down in the worst way, but I’m enjoying it right now.
Let’s see if I got this straight. David Willis writes about a student, Joyce Brown in Dumbing of Age. Joyce writes about a spaceship pilot, Julia Gray, in the Julia Grey Chronicles. Julia Gray, an astronaut by day, writes at night about Amber Furey, an Ice Mage in the Ice Mage series. https://www.amazon.com/Mage-Julia-Gray-3-Dec-1998-Paperback/dp/B012HU0T2Y/ As early as Book 3, we find she, in turn, records tales of an artist who lives in a fictional world without magic.
It’s authors all the way down.
Authors are great at writing authors. It’s a trope of its own.
Stevie king approves
Write what you know!
My Darling Bride has been watching a lot of Hallmark movies. It seems like 80% of the lead characters in the Hallmarkverse is an author. I guess they think it’s a profession that allows the character to conveniently run around doing whatever she wishes at any time of day.
To be fair, those are Hallmark writers. Maybe they’re writing from experience.
Hallmark movies are all autobiographical. That’s why they’re so unbelievable.
Same with the soap operas my mother and wife both watch. The characters are powerful and rich business people with large successful companies, but somehow you never see them actually working.
I’m pretty sure Sarah made me laugh harder than any webcomic has in about a month.
WALKY YOU FOOL
YOU’VE GRANTED HER MORE POWER
Sarah is gonna explode into song at this RATE
“Anger and misery and sadness to boot,
Distress and hardship and angst oh so cute,
and Walky getting kicked in the dingdings,
These are a few of my favourite things.”
Bluebirds are gonna start alighting on her shoulders, I’m tellin’ ya.
If not just explode.
And now I want to punch Walky.
Fantastic.
i like to think sarah’s burst came from joyce ripping walky’s spine out, sub-zero style.
Dina doesn’t build snow angels. She build snow dinosaurs.
Nobody builds snow angels. You just flop around in the snow and wave your arms.
I think we broke Sarah
Walky.
Dude.
Walky has crossed the threshold to unbearable annoyance.
Sarah has almost reached triangle smile levels of schadenfreude-based powers. Holy crap.
It’s true! That grin is getting more triangular every second!!
Hah! Go me for predicting Julia Gray comics.
That was very hard, I’m sure!
Take a bow! (No snark.)
Or other hair ornament of choice.
You did indeed! Bagge, have a cookie.
magical ESPer Sarah
Panel two Joyce is the hottest Joyce in 10+ years.
Maybe. But I’m trashy enough that I was diggin’ her imagined consequences of Billie dressing Joyce.
Sarahsmile intensifying.
And that’s when Walky was murdered
Just to speak to something I know about- there is an eyesight requirement for pilots in general. Military pilots have a more stringent eyesight requirement. It is roughly around 20/40 and should be correctable to 20/20 with glasses. More recently, folks can get PRK and LASIK and if it corrects to within those limits and they weren’t significantly outside the limits before the eye operation- those people will get a chance to fly too. So Joyce, could still be a space pilot (astronauts do not have more stringent eye requirements than military to my knowledge).
She’s probably within those limits, if reading the board in the lecture hall only became impossible recently.
The (US) Air Force will also pay to correct current pilots degrading vision to incease to longevity of their careers. That’s a LOT of money thats been sunk into those folks. Getting even a few *months* extra for the cost of Lasik far outweighs their prorated training costs.
That’d be some expensive Lasik because it costs between five and ten million dollars to train a US air force pilot.
Was going to say the same thing. Eyesight requirements are pretty tight, you can’t require glasses when you join, but if you develop problems later, they will cover it, military training is expensive, and qualified pilots are scarce. My experience was with the Canadian Air Force qualification requirements. I wasn’t accepted due to a combination of eyesight and hearing issues, one or the other would have been okay, but not both. I could have enrolled for anything else, just not pilot.
In America anyway, astronauts need 20/20 vision, either naturally or with correction.
Joyce’s eyes are always expressive and the sudden switch in panel four is a hoot.
I haven’t laughed at this comic this much in quite a while.
Just a little more Jay and Sarah will explode!
On the one hand: poor Joyce, I feel bad for her.
On the other: Happy Sarah is kinda hilarious?
Sarah might get addicted to this euphoria. What will she do when Joyce starts feeling better?
“Hey Joyce your god exists and is VERY disappointed in you! Hehehe WHEEE”
Red alert! Red alert! Sarah’s going supercritical! We need to reverse the polarity of the positivity containment field before we have to eject the core!
Sarah, stop it, you’re scaring me! I don’t think the universe can contain that smile of yours.
ah yes, the very thing that crushed my totally realistic astronaut dreams at the age of 10.
Ow….
That sudden realisation (of broken – maybe unrealistic – future dreams) is painful. :_(
Well, at least Sarah is getting her Joy in hyperdrive.
If Sarah goes on being happy she’s likely to get laid.
For a space force, perfect eyesight wouldn’t actually be that useful. In space, ranges are so much bigger that even the keenest human eye is just about useless. We need machine eyes.
Even for the air force, perfect eyesight is gradually becoming less relevant. The pilot’s eyes are secondary to the aircraft’s radar and optronics. The focus is now on what they call “BVR” (“beyond visual range”) precisely because modern weapons have so much reach the target would be invisible to the naked eye.
Anyway, Sarah finally achieved the triangle smile.
holy shit, i can’t believe willis is killing walky already after just killing mike
Damn Walky, I mean, Joyce wanted a family someday…
Sarah’s gonna die of this if it keeps going. But she’ll die happy, something she could have never predicted.
I wonder, if there even is snow outside. There hasn’t been at midnight – and we didn’t get a glimpse out of any window so far.
*forgot to insert an end-tag* – and now it looks like if I had linked to every single page of the current chapter, and I so wish I really did that.
*forgot to hit the reply button*
“Yes, 911? I’m about to witness a MURDER here soon.”