Had To Wash Up Afterwards

Let me tell you what kind of day it was. It was the kind of day that I had to come home afterwards and put my uniform straight in the washing machine.

Nothing nasty, just pepper spray. My first act of the day, pretty much.

Just going along, doing med pass. Me and Chuck and Nancynurse. Get down to 6 cell in C-wing where we are keeping this old man. Fifty-nine years old and loopy as a bat on nitrous oxide. But some of his shtick is just an act. He can hear fine and understand fine when he wants to. He just wants to act like a snaphole most of the time.

So I cuff him up and he gets his meds and we shut the door and I take off the cuffs..... and the old sh*t won't take his hands out of the chuckhole. I say "Get your hands back in there!" and he grabs ahold of the chuckhole door and says "No! Take me somewhere else!"

Well, that just won't do.

So I tell him a few more times to take his hands out (once is enough, by policy) and he refuses. So I pull out my pepper spray and I tell him "You get your hands back in there or I will spray you!" and again he says "No!"

So, I sprayed him. And he just stands there and looks at me. He's so close to the chuckhole that the spray is mostly just on his shirt. I tell him again to take his hands out and he gets a firmer grip on the chuckhole door. But about this time I guess it begins to register that something is starting to burn down around the area of his belly and he looks down.

I take this opportunity to spray him again. This time he's looking down and it goes up into his face. He starts to cough and his hands slide out of the chuckhole.

Finally!

I get the thing shut and walk away. He's in there coughing and spitting. Chuck is behind me coughing.

Yeah, the bastard finally showed up for work....

Little Nursey was a few cells away and she says "Did you spray him?" and about that time it hits her and she starts coughing. She coughed and sneezed and sounded like Janis Joplin for the rest of the evening.

Oops.

And when I finally get relieved to go up and do the paperwork, all I get is smartassed remarks about picking on the oldest guy in the house.

Jeez!

They just won't give you a break around this place.

And I had to go around smelling like a spoiled taco all night. Pfui.