Stressed Out

In the corporate world there is a catchphrase: "Mistakes have been made, others will be blamed."

It's a nice thought, but I can't blame anybody but myself.

Something got missed and I didn't catch it. Somebody could potentially get hurt because I got complacent and wasn't being alert.

What happened was, on midnight shift they searched a cell in the Hive and found a shank. This little creep has had shanks before. That's why he's locked up. Another 19 year old C-5 punk who feels more like a man if he has access to a weapon.

What it was made of was a six inch piece of fence wire. Straightened out and sharpened to a point on the end. A dandy little sticking weapon. So the day shift sarge went out and checked the fences outside and didn't see anything wrong. But when he went out on the rec yard, he found a hole in the wire between two of the cages. The last two on the end. There's a hole in the wire about eight inches wide and about twelve inches tall. Down at the bottom.

And I never saw it.

Someone has been pulling at that wire for a long time and breaking off pieces. My first guess is they wanted a hole so they could touch each other down there. They tend to sit down and the others arrange themselves so we can't see down to the end.

It's not in the outside fence, so we know it's not an escape attempt. So there's only two real explanations. One, they wanted to be able to touch each other where we couldn't see. Or two, they wanted the wire for weapons. Or even three, because they were bored.

I'm hoping to the gods that most of that wire got thrown outside the fence because they didn't want to get caught with it like that little jagoff did last night. I'm hoping there's no more chunks of wire hidden somewhere waiting for an opportunity.

But I should have caught it before it got as big as it did. And I didn't. And I 'm mad as hell at myself and sick to my stomach over the whole deal.

I'll be lucky if they don't kick me out of the house. I'll take the blame for it, because I should have been more attentive. I should have caught it. I pride myself on being alert and paying attention to the details and I let one slip right past me. And because I did, there might be weapons in my house.

Shit.

I'm sure the finger pointing and the butt chewing will start tomorrow. I just can't freaking wait.

I'm going to bed.

And I didn't see it until he pointed it out.