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Playing With / Acquainted with Emergency Services

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Basic Trope: A character is well-known by Emergency Services (firefighters, police, paramedics, etc.) due to how often they see each other.

  • Straight: Bob's house catches on fire and he calls 911. All of the firefighters remember him from the last house fire.
  • Exaggerated: Bob and all emergency workers on the planet know each other from previous incidents.
  • Downplayed: The emergency worker only knows Bob from an incident that happened recently.
  • Justified:
    • The work Bob does is dangerous so he is in contact with emergency services if he's in trouble.
    • Bob is a frequent risk-taker and the emergency services have had to get him out of trouble numerous times.
    • Bob is a wanted criminal.
    • Bob has uncontrolled epilepsy despite his medications.
    • The emergency worker already knew Bob before becoming an emergency worker.
    • Bob works as an emergency worker, so the others are his colleagues and got to know them over time.
    • Bob is a Walking Disaster Area. Emergency services has eventually figured out this fact after seeing how many times he's been around some destruction.
    • Officer Bob is stationed at a danger prone district and is frequently dispatched for cordoning off the emergency site.
    • He's also started a petition for mirrors to be placed at the blind T intersections 7th(S)-Vienna(L), 9th(L)-Harmony(S) and 12th(S)-Washington(L) to allow for timely braking that the emergency services have already signed.note 
  • Inverted: Emergency workers are well-known by multiple civilians due to how often they help each of them.
  • Subverted:
    • Bob knows who the emergency worker is, but the worker doesn't remember him. Or vice versa.
    • Bob expects emergency services to know who he is but he's in a brand new area and they never heard of him.
    • Bob knows the emergency workers, but not from previous emergencies.
  • Double Subverted:
    • Bob or the emergency worker is reminded of their past actions and now remembers.
    • The emergency worker is new and never heard of Bob until a co-worker, who knows Bob, explains who he is.
  • Parodied:
    • Rookie emergency workers are required to meet Bob as part of their training.
    • Bob has his own bed reserved at the hospital.
    • After Bob's latest incident is resolved, Bob and the first responders have a little chat about their daily lives.
    • Emergency workers have started making bets on when Bob will be responsible for another incident.
    • The emergency workers need a particularly hefty amount of time to figure out that, yes, Bob is there and there is an emergency, but there is no connection whatsoever.
    • Bob has a frequent client card; saying "just two more times I get hit by a car and I'll get a free stay/a 50% discount/a set of stake knives/tickets to Disneyland!" with the enthusiasm of someone who is seriously looking forward to get hit by cars.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob and the emergency workers have a mix of experiences where sometimes they know each other well from previous incidents, and other times they don't recognize each other at all. The level of familiarity varies depending on the specific situation or context.
  • Averted: Bob and the emergency workers don't know each other.
  • Enforced: The Adventures of Bob is a Cringe Comedy and most of the hilarity that ensues is because Bob is a Walking Disaster Area. Nothing showcases he is one of these faster than having a 911 operator saying an exasperated "what the hell did you do this time, Bob?"
  • Lampshaded: "Call the fire department! And mention my name to them, they already know me!"
  • Invoked: Bob tries to warn emergency services about himself so they can be prepared for him.
  • Exploited: Evulz uses the fact Bob is well-known by emergency services to try to get less scrutiny by them whenever he does something destructive — false voice, a disguise, and waving as he walks away and maybe by the time the law finally figures out that it wasn't Bob, he'll be very far away.
  • Defied: Bob tries to disguise himself and his voice so the emergency workers won't recognize him.
  • Discussed: Characters in the story have a conversation or dialogue specifically about Bob's relationship with emergency services and how well-known he is to them.
  • Conversed: "Bob must be up to some crazy shenanigans when the emergency services are that familiar with his name."
  • Implied:
    • Bob knows the procedures that emergency workers go through because he seen it several times before.
    • Bob has heard of the emergency worker's name.
  • Deconstructed: Every time Bob does something stupid, necessary resources that could be used to save someone else's life are wasted saving his sorry ass. One of these days the emergency servicemen are going to go "fuck this shit" and let him die, if they can get away with it.
  • Reconstructed: Bob's many troubles gave the emergency services tons of experience. It saved a dozen lives when a natural disaster hit. He gets (and promptly injures himself on) an award for this great service.
  • Played For Laughs:
  • Played For Drama:
    • Bob is a hypochondriac. The emergency services are not acquainted with him out of friendship, but out of trying repeatedly to tell him that having a dry mouth in a hot day is not a sign of something that requires an ambulance and that he needs to get help. Bob never listens and eventually someone dies because the emergency servicemen that could have saved them were elsewhere dealing with Bob.
    • Bob is so accident-prone that the emergency services begin to adopt Crying Wolf and Inspector Javert mode, so when Bob calls for help for an emergency that he is most definitely neither a casualty nor cause of, the few seconds it takes him to convince them to come help exacerbate the problem and those in charge of the inevitable investigation on what happened would really like to arrest him and toss away the key just to be safe.
  • Played For Horror:
    • Bob is a Stalker with a Crush to Alice. Alice is a member of emergency services. He eventually figures out that a good way to be constantly around her without drawing "stalker" suspicions is by constantly getting in accidents and letting Alice patch him up.
    • Bob is the avatar of a variation of the Old Beggar Test for emergency service people. As annoying as it is to deal with him constantly, it will be much worse if you don't.

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