It Smelled Like Old Times

Disclaimer: If you are eating or have a weak stomach or are just one of those overly sensible people to start with.....

Well, you should know better than to be here in the first place.

But if you can take it, then read on.

They sent me down to the Hive again. Imagine that. I won't go into the reasons why I was down there. That's just..... no.

And on the way down there I said a few things out loud that I won't print here about my crew. My rec crew was good. It was Compass and Gray Ham. They are like Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau together but they know their job and get things done.

On the other hand I got Patch and the Kid for my floor crew and I despaired deeply. Patch bid in down there and that boy needs a hearing aid and maybe some Ritalin. Everything he says comes out in this unrecognizable blur all jammed together.

"Sarge! Doweblurrbleisthevisitsnaffle?"

"What?"

"Doweblurrbleisthevisitsnaffle?"

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Just do it."

And the Kid..... Well, he's been thrown out of everywhere else so I got stuck with him. He has to be in a place where he is under "direct supervision". And only on A-side. He's not allowed on B-side at all.

I wasn't happy about having him there. But he managed to help count and pass out the mail without setting anything on fire so I guess he did okay.

Like last night, I was glad that I had two experienced officers around who could help keep an eye on things.

We had what we thought was just a plugged toilet. Patch got them a plunger and they tried it with no luck.

So we got the inmate plumbers down there with their snake. No luck then either.

I called up front and said we would have to take that cell offline until we could get it fixed. That would have been Tuesday at the earliest because of the upcoming holiday. They didn't like that option and said to hang tight.

Two hours later the head Plumber pulls up in his truck with his five inmate workers and they roll out the big industrial snake and a whole chest of tools and boxes of parts and start tinkering with the drains. They spend over an hour pulling out an accumulation of....... Some pretty nasty stuff that had built up in the main drain pipe.

The smell was pretty awful. It smelled just like.... It smelled just like the Hive used to smell like all the time in the bad old days. Like an open sewer. It made my eyes water and my sinuses slam shut. It was the kind of odor that clung to you in sticky clumps and skittered around on the floor like hyperactive demonic termites looking to bore into your brain.

I was immediately sorry that I quit carrying Vicks in my lunchbox. That would have helped alot.

They got done just before count cleared and had to wait. My poor dorm worker spent another hour with a bucket of bleach water and some other cleanser mopping and re-mopping the floor. The combination of the two cleaners he used was almost as toxic as the original smell. But he finally got it cleaned up and I sent him back to his house with stern instructions to take a long shower when he got there.

Even now, hours later, I still can't smell anything. My nose may have finally given up in despair.

But for a Friday the 13th, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I've seen worse.

So Saturday is going to be National Dress Up Your Pet Day (Critter! It's time!), Organize Your Home Day, National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day and Penguin Awareness Day.

Sunday will be Hat Day (Whoo Hoo!), Humanitarian Day, Strawberry Ice Cream Day and Snowflake Photograph Day.

Monday of course will be Hot and Spicy Food International Day and National Nothing Day as well as National Fig Newton Day and National Nothing Day.

Celebrate Nothing!