D'oh!

When I looked on the way out they had me scheduled for the control center again. I was happy and nervous. Tuesdays and Thursdays are transfer days.

Those are the days we trade inmates with other camps. Ours transfer out in the morning and theirs transfer in in the evening, right about shift change.

And 9 times out of 10 if count is screwed up bad enough that we have to do one of those "Send everybody back to their housing units and count them again" counts it's on a Tuesday or a Thursday.

I had yet to work up there on a transfer day. But I told myself "It's okay. Stubby will be there and he knows how to do transfers. I can watch and learn some things."

When I got to work I remembered where I was working and what day it was. And again I told myself "It's okay. Stubby will be there and he knows how to do transfers. I can watch and learn some things."

I came in and looked at the chrono and, sure enough, I was in the control center.

I said my little mantra again.

Then, just to be nosy, I looked up at the list to see who had called out.

Just one name on the list.

I'll give you three guesses.

Yup. It was him.

D'oh!

Okay, Rev. Don't panic. Let's see who is up there with me. Sgt Puddle. Excellent. I'm not completely hosed. Big'un.....of course. He's always up there these days. And... Mr Coffee.

D'oh!

I said a few more quite unladylike words right about then. And seriously considered having a sudden case of appendicitis. Or strep throat. Or pink eye. Or even strep eye and a pink appendix.

And right about that time (abut ten minutes before shift change) the transfer bus rolled in.

D'oh! Oh snap.

And silly as* me, I went on up there and started checking my numbers, feeling about as perky as a man walking to the gallows. Oh my. 43 outcounts and 4 sleepers (which screw up count something fierce some days) and 13 on the transfer bus.

To my incredible surprise, Ms Swabbie was already doing the transfers in the computer and she got them done right after I got up there. I didn't get to watch but at that point I didn't care. She had done the hardest part of the number crunching and if she didn't make any mistakes, my count should be good.

Between my ham handedness with the numbers and somebody forgetting to tell me that they had locked up two right before count it was very nearly screwed up. I had to do some fast tap dancing and recalculating and swapping numbers but it finally came out in the end.

Whew!

The places I am screwing up are simple and boneheaded. I had 2 outcounts from 10 house but I wrote down a 10 instead of a 2. Like a fool. Simple things like that are catching me up.

And to make things worse there was something big going on somewhere that involved several calls to one of the police departments in the next county, a call from the Captain for the head of maintenance and a call to the Major. I never did figure out for sure what was going on with that. But it was just enough extra input to get me flustered, apparently.

We made it through, but it was a close call.

And Stubby, wherever you are, you're a jerk.

You better have been sick and not just fishing or I swear I'll spank you.

On a lighter note, Wednesday will be Neither Rain Nor Snow Day. Maybe I'll get some good news in the mail. It will also be Google Commemoration Day, Salami Day and Grandma Moses Day.

Go wild with the celebrations.