The Chicken Leg Incident

This just goes to show how stupid inmates can screw up anything. You could house them in a palace and they would turn it into a trash dump in no time flat.

Of course, some of us aren't all that much better, as you will see later.

About one a month we would have "chicken quarters" for dinner. Just a leg and a thigh of mostly cooked chicken. Nothing to write home about, but at least you knew it was real chicken and not some processed meat byproduct of dubious origin.

Chicken night was always annoying because for two or three nights later we would be seeing gnawed chicken bones come sliding out under cell doors onto the walk. And the mouse and cockroach population would hold jubilant ceremonies in the wings.

I remember my first night in the Hive when they served chicken. And I saw some of those bones laying around and thought to myself "Man! I'll bet you could hurt somebody with one of those if you really tried!"

But the subject never came up. Until this weekend, that is.

Apparently while I was off on my back pain hiatus they had chicken quarters and some genius threatened to shank his cellie with a chicken bone.

And of course it got paid attention to and sent up the chain and somebody took it seriously. So from now on, whenever they serve chicken quarters on the hill, they will be sending chicken patties down to the Hive.

I'd like to see some snaphead try and shank his cellie with a chicken patty.

No..... one of those idiots would probably try it. But you get the idea. No more chicken for us. Back to the mystery meat for eternity.

Pfui.

But on the subject of staff members you wouldn't invite home after work, they sent us a utility officer to replace Miz Maybe up in the bubble.

Of course it was the weekend after payday and she had to call out again. I wish they would pay her just once a month so she would be in more often.

Anyway, they sent us the one officer that everybody flinches when they see him walk into their house. You probably know who I mean. He has a voice like Kermit the frog on valium.

At one point BG had gone back inside to get something and bubble guy was up there with his boots and socks off trimming his toenails. He toiled at that chore for the most part of an hour before he was done.

Hey, at least he had his feet up on day shifts locker and not on ours. Thank Gawd for small favors.

We speculated that if we came back in we would find him with cucumber slices on his eyes, cold cream on his face and little slips of paper between his toes, sunning himself under the desk lamp in a little terrycloth robe.

That whole thing just put horrible pictures in my head.

And I wondered what would have happened if something had kicked off. Would he have been running around up there barefoot or would he have just said "You gotta wait. The paint isn't dry yet! I'll smudge!"

I often wonder who is nuttier. Them or us.

I still do.