Porgie

What can I say about my friend Porgie?

Well, for one thing if you met him outside of work it would never even cross your mind that he might work in a prison. A toy factory, yes. A prison, no.

Of course it shows how bad my predictions are. When I first met Porgie I thought "That man won't last five minutes inside there! They will eat him alive!" But it's been what.... years now. And Porgie is still around. Just the same as he was that very first day.

I would say he's a "simple man" but that doesn't really describe him very well. There's sort of a connotation with that makes him sound like he's stupid. And Porgie is far from stupid.

But he does play that role very well. And he uses the fact that other people think he is stupid to get them to do his work for him. Luckily for us, we know better and make him do his own work.

Porgie is nice and mellow and a bit meek and mild. I don't think he would really be of any use at all in a major dustup but if there's normal ordinary things to do like wing walks and packing property of just generally "keeping an eye on things" then Porgie is your man. he's the guy you would leave in the bubble if something bad happened. He wouldn't get the doors open quickly, but he would get them open.

I was running a house bubble tonight around my least favorite time of the day. When all the inmates were coming back from chow. At first it's a trickle, then a stream of them. All coming in through the same door and going to four different wings and calling for their doors to be opened. I know I am supposed to be controlling the flow in the house when I am up there but it still gets to me. I get aggravated and I've had a lot on my mind lately anyway and I started getting pissed off.

Good old Porgie stepped in and said he would get them back in and that I should just sit down and relax for a few minutes. He sat down and started popping doors at the slow to medium pace he does everything at, letting them in gradually. Every now and then he would just stop and hit the intercom button and say "I'll get to ya as soon as I can, fellas. I'm doing the work of six men up here!"

And they would all laugh and he would go back to popping doors again, slowly but surely. I just shook my head.

Later on in the evening Porgie and I were out front having a smoke when somebody called a fight on the yard. Being the bubble officer, I wasn't supposed to go. I looked at Porgie and said "You going?" I should have known better. He looked at me and said "Well Rev, do you think I should?" It would have killed me if he had gone. He would have stuck his hands in his pockets and ambled that direction like he was looking for a flower shop.

Instead I said "I got this!" and took off running. The last thing I heard as I hit the end of the walk was "Rev, do you really think you should go? You're the bubble officer!" I just shook my head and ran anyway. Luckily I got there late and didn't have to get involved. I probably would have gotten a good frowning at for being out of the bubble.

And Porgie went back in the house and did things at his own pace and everything in the house went just fine.

Maybe I should try to be more like him.

Here's the weekend lineup:
Saturday- World Vegetarian Day and Magic Circles Day as well as World Card Making Day.
Sunday- Name Your Car Day, Change A Light Day and Techies Day.
Monday- Virus Appreciation Day (oh yeah, like that's gonna happen), Child Health Day and World Habitat Day.

Good luck stringing those together!