Say What?

Just hanging out down in the wobblehead house tonight. On my Friday.

Thought about taking off early but we weren't out of coffee yet so I decided to stay.

Miz Avon Was out doing a wing walk and we could see her talking to one of the offenders and he was showing her something in a notepad. Miz Cackles sees that and says "Oh Gawd, he's written another story and he wants her to read it! Oh gawd! They're horrible!"

Sure enough, he had written another story. And Miz Avon is too nice to tell him to his face that they suck so she says she'll read it and bring it back. So she brings it up into the bubble and starts reading it out loud to us.

And yeah..... It was pretty freaking bad.

Even considering it was written by a wobblehead.

The upscut of the tale was about a woman who gave birth to a baby girl that looked just like a cat. Even down to having a tail.

Yeah.

Anyway, Miz Avon is reading along and she says "Her dousher looked like a cat!"

We all said "Her what?"

She reads the line again. "Her dousher looked like a cat!"

Well, none of us knew what that meant and we spent quite a bit of the remaining evening contriving some rather rough humor about that phrase.

We could have just asked the inmate, but that would have been too easy.

When I got home I told the story to my wife she immediately said "I'm sure he was trying to say daughter."

Well....... That makes perfect sense.

Of course if we had thought of that right away we wouldn't have had anywhere near as much fun with it as we did.

Anyway.

So here's the weekend lineup:
Wednesday is going to be: My Bucket's Got A Hole In It Day, Loomis Day and National Mint Julep Day.

Thursday will be National Macaroon Day, Hug Your Cat Day and What You Think Upon Grows Day.

Friday will be Dare Day, Donut Day, National Go Barefoot Day and National Hazelnut Cake Day.

My bucket just has a hole at the top, thank you.

Oops....

The last month or so I have had a passenger with me when I drive to work. Now that the wife is back we ride together when we can to save gas.

I like it. We talk on the way there and on the way back. We have seen more of each other lately than we have in a while.

And that's a pretty good thing, in case you were wondering.

But today we were on different times. I had to be in at 2:30 and she didn't need to be there until 3:30 so we took separate vehicles.

As I am wont to do when driving alone I had my music cranked up fairly loud. Not loud enough to be annoying, but loud enough for a late 40's something rocker to jam out.

Right before I got to the light Santana and Rob Thomas came on doing "Smooth" and I cranked it up a little bit louder just because I dig that song.

Sitting there jamming. Head bobbing and singing along. Drumming on the steering wheel.

Then I notice that the turn light is green but the car in the turn lane next to me isn't moving.

Glance over that way and there's a young 20-ish couple in the car watching me and smiling. As I look over they both give me a wave and a smile and then they drive on.

And it suddenly got alot warmer in the truck.

Might have just been me. I'm not sure.

Tuesday is going to be End Of The Middle Ages Day. Man! I'm glad I didn't miss that. It will also be UN Peacekeepers Day, Learn About Composting Day and National Coq Au Vin Day.

No more middle ages! Yay!

Paper Freaking Work!

If something ever happened to our paper supply, this place would come to a screeching halt.

Can't hardly poop around this place without having to write a memo to the shift commander and make five extra copies.

Keep one, file one, lose one, send one to the Major and keep the last one and the original just in case there's no toilet paper when you get done.

Sheesh.

It's been three months since I have done entries on my people so it's time to do them all again. I've lost some and gained some. My list is down to nine now, since I have two vacant spots. That's a manageable number of people that I have to rate and never get to see or work with.

Nine people times two copies since I have to give them one and put one in their file. Eighteen. Not too bad.

Plus I am coming up on the end of my probationary period and I finally have a new supervisor. Lt Beez. Or second newest Lieutenant. He was hyper and a bit crazy when he was a COI and he hasn't changed a lick since then.

One of the things I got from him was a "Position Statement." I have to describe my position and what I do with my day broken down by how much of my time I spend doing things. Everyone has to fill one out at the end of a probationary period.

I really really had to fight putting down "I don't have the slightest fracking idea where my time goes. I just come hang out and I leave when all the coffee is gone."

It's close enough to the truth.

Filling that thing out is one more reason never to promote again.

Or I'll wait until I save up enough out of the big pay raise I get to get some lackey to fill it out for me.

"Here, kid. Fill this out and let me know what it is I do all day and I'll give you five bucks."

And he'll write down "He comes in and hangs out and leaves when all the coffee is gone."

And that will be close enough to the truth.

Monday is going to be Memorial Day, National Hamburger Day, Sierra Club Day, Slugs Return From Capistrano Day and Whit Monday.

And what is a whit?

Almost Forgot To Put In A Title

Really.

But working in a prison that's a good thing, yes?

Sunday is going to be the Body Painting Arts Festival (sweeeet!), Cellophane Tape Day, Whit Sunday (?) and National Grape Popsicle Day.

Please celebrate responsibly.

Radio Chatter

I worked an RDO (or Regular Day Off) yesterday to get myself off of the top of the mandatory overtime list. Since there's only sixteen or seventeen of us on the list, it goes around pretty quickly.

Stuck me out in C-zone, which meant I had to monitor all of the laundry movements and make sure the counts were correct.

And let me tell you, trying to count straggling inmates with the radio chattering numbers in my ear is kind of a challenge. I took to writing numbers on my hand in between groups.

I knew there were 105 of them in total. So I wrote that down on the back of my hand. And then I started counting them as they went by. The first thirty or so went easy because there was no radio traffic. Then....

33, 34, 35.....

"45 to A-yard releasing nine to A-dining and two to three house."

"10-4"

36! 37, 38, 39....

"19 to 23, 10-15 262 or 10-10"

Augh! (wrote 39 on my hand)
40, 41, 42...

"47 to 69"

"69!"

"10-15 407"

"10-4! In one!"

Augh! 43, dammit! 44, 45, 46, 47....

"47 to 69 disregard."

"10-4!"

69.... No! 48... sheesh! (wrote that down...)

"78 to 69"

Is that me? No, I'm 82. But he's calling me.

"82"

49, 50, 51, 52...... (wrote that down)

"I copy 105, correct?"

"10-4" Snap! Now I'm doing it to myself!

Finally managed to get them all counted without screwing it up. But I ended up with numbers scribbled all over the palm of my hand and a real good headache.

I cannot wait until they get this new laundry shack built and the fence fixed so we can go back to the old way of letting them walk down there unescorted. If we are real lucky it will only take them another three months or so....

And tonight Tilt decided to put his own two cents in out there on the radio.

We were outside supervising the inmates watering the garden. They always have to be supervised if they have a hose.

Tilt had just got done eating and was patting his belly and groaning softly. I remarked that he looked full. He looked at me and said "Well, I won't be here in a minute!" and off into the house he went, heading for the bathroom.

About ten minutes later he calls me on the radio.

"97 to 92..."

Now what? I thought he was in the bathroom!

"92.."

"Be advised..." he says "That detail is complete."

I just stood there for a second dumbfounded before I could reply "10-4"

Couldn't really believe that he just called me on the radio to tell me he pooped.

I finally stopped laughing about ten minutes later.

Too much, yeah?

So! ( I had to look at my watch to remember what day this is) Saturday is going to be Grey Day, International Jazz Day, Julia Pierpont Day, Amateur radio Military Appreciation Day and National Blueberry Cheesecake Day.

And just who the snap is Julia Pierpont when she's at home?

Over/Under Medicated

Some days I wish I could wear that shirt to work. Of course if I wanted to, I could make myself one just like that.

But they wouldn't let me wear it to work.

I figure it would be a good warning for everyone to stay away from me some days.

They just don't see the logic in that.

In the past nine years I have seen them do some strange things with inmates and medications. Give them too much or not enough or change meds suddenly or take them off suddenly, which turns out to never be a good thing.

Some of those wobbleheads have been on high powered psych meds or anti-psychotics for years and when you take them off of them suddenly, guess what?

Now you have a full blown psychotic on your hands seeing snakes and termites in his underwear and digging holes in the yard mining for aluminum to protect his brain from the satellites.

Then they usually make their way down to the Hive all covered with pepper spray and gravel and they say "Here ya go, pal! He's all yours!"

Nice. Thanks alot.

And the same thing goes for when they over-medicate them as well. I've seen that happen more than once. One of the wobbleheads gets out of control and they give him a butt full of Haladol or Thorazine and turn him into a drooling pile and then send him down to the Hive.

Then we get to scrape him up off of the floor once a night and clean up the puddles and put him in a clean smock and prop him back up in the corner again until he comes back out of it.

And we all know who is going to get the blame if one of them chokes to death on his own drool some night.

Us, the poor working stiffs who were "supposed to be watching him." Do we go in the cell every fifteen minutes and shake them gently and say "Mister Wobblehead? Are you okay?" No. We look in the window and if he moves a little or seems to be breathing then we leave him alone.

Because you don't want to open that door and go in there unless you really have to. Like I said, some of those guys have been taking those drugs for years and have built up quite a tolerance. They could take enough Thorazine to send me to the Bahamas for a month like it was nothing but a Tic-Tac.

And one of the side effects of taking so many anti-psychotics is that they tend to give you quite a tolerance for pain. And they aint skeered when we come in that door because they know it's not going to hurt until the drugs wear off.

I purely do hate it when they start messing with their medications.

That kind of thing can mess up your whole day.

Here's the weekend lineup:
Wednesday is going to be Penny Day, Declaration of The Bab Day, National Taffy Day and World Turtle Day.

Thursday is going to be National Escargot Day (eww...), Brothers Day, International Tiara Day and Morse Code Day.

Friday will be National Tap Dance Day, Cookie Monsters Birthday, Don't Fry Day, National Geek or Nerd Pride Day and National Brown-Bag-It Day.

Is it acceptable to use my Jeff Gordon Lunchbox rather than a brown bag?

Phbbbbbbt!

Blah.

Just blah.

Tuesday is going to be Buy-A-Musical-Instrument Day (go see Chanel), International Day For Biological Diversity (oookayyyy...), Maritime day and National Vanilla Pudding Day.

And that's that.

Ooo... That Was Frustrating

Not a bad night for most of it. I felt a bit better and didn't do a whole lot of actual work.

We were short people so we had to work the house down one officer. That meant I had to count two wings instead of just one and I had Meatball roving up and down the stairs all night long.

It was good for him. He needs the exercise, anyway. He'll be chasing a baby around soon and he needs the practice.

Anyway things were going well until I heard that dang radio call.

"10-5 in the Hive! 10-5 in the Hive!"
In case you are new here or have forgotten, 10-5 means "I need immediate assistance!"

Snap! I ran down the steps and out the front door and got about forty feet down the walk before I realized that there was no way I could get there from where I was.

Not only was I just about as far away from there as you can get and still be inside the wire, there was also at least two layers of fence and locked gates between here and there.

Snap! Snappity snappity snap!

And to make matters worse it was Sgt Miz P, my old stomping partner, making the distress call.

She got herself put down in the Hive when LB got himself pulled out. And she needed help and I couldn't get there.

I almost burst into flames from the frustration.

Called Lt Sienna after it calmed down again and he said there were twelve people involved in the use of force. I never did get any details, other than it was one of our wobbleheads and there was blood involved.

I'm secretly glad I wasn't there. They are going to be there until way late tonight doing paperwork for all of those people.

Man.... Been there and done that.

Anyway, I don't envy them the paperwork and I sure hope nobody got hurt.

That being said...
Monday is going to be National Memo Day and National Waitresses/Waiters Day as well as Rapture Party Day, Victoria Day and National Strawberries and Cream Day.

That must be why we picked them yesterday, huh?
Donna, I hope you saved some extras!

Non Post

Coming down with the ick.

I may not even go to work tomorrow if this keeps up.

Bleah.

Sunday is going to be Eliza Doolittle Day, Neighbor Day, Weights and Measures Day and Pick Strawberries Day.

Yum..... strawberries...

Did I Mention I Hate Surprises?

Something about working in a prison, I don't know. But I just despise being surprised.

Thought tonight was going to be just another humdrum boring night. One of those ones where I could just skip the post bit and just jot down the holidays for tomorrow and go to bed.

Then they called a surprise count fifteen minutes early. We weren't ready. PPK was still over at Central working on the computer and out of the house. There was no warning at all.

Tilt grabbed Miz Pepe and went to count. As PPK came scrambling back in the door I went out to do the inner perimeter inspection again. We have to do that when there is an emergency count.

Went trotting around the fence checking for holes and tunnels, trying to get it done as fast as I could, knowing they were waiting to hear me clear it.

Came trucking around the end of the building just as PPK came around the other way unexpectedly. I made this noise like "Pshxxft!" Kind of a cross between someone suddenly letting the air out of a balloon and someone sitting on a startled badger.

We very nearly pepper sprayed each other.

That would have been extremely difficult to explain in the paperwork afterwards.

And they would have never let me live it down.

We never did find out what all the fuss was about.

Did I mention I dislike surprises? And that surprising corrections officers in general is just a bad idea?

I'm just saying...


Saturday is going to be Frog Jumping Jubilee Day, Armed Forces Day, Mike, The Headless Chicken Day, the O. Henry Pun-Off Day and Artichoke Day.

Snap! I missed the pun-off again!

TGIF

Yeah.

Wednesday is going to be Wear Purple For Peace Day, Biographers Day, Sea Monkeys Day and Coquilles St Jacques Day (whatever the snap THAT is).

Thursday will be Pack Rat Day, National Cherry Cobbler Day and World Information Society Day.

Friday will be International Museum Day and Visit Your Relatives Day as well as National Cheese Souffle' Day.

Take your sea monkeys to the park!

Update On The Desk

Moved those two old desks out this weekend. That was quite the chore. Just moving all of the junk piled on top of them took me hours. The old office looked pretty empty.

Hauled the new one in and decided to slant it out into the room to give myself a bit more space back there. I'm going to do something with all that blank space on the back of it. My mind reels with possibilities.

Of course the first thing I had to do was move my dragons and skulls back out where they could be seen again. Unfortunately the thing is so tall I had to remove the blades from my ceiling fan. Ah well. I rarely use that anyway....

Moved my 'puter in and got it all set back up. I was really unhappy with that huge mass of wires back there.
So I moved the tower down to the lower shelf and built the box you see back there. It has slots lined with felt for the wires to run through. It's stuck down with little Velcro pads to keep it from moving. And the stain I chose came real close to matching!
My old desk had nails and thumb tacks and things that I hung my stuff on and I didn't want to do that again. So I procured these little gears from the wife. She cuts them out with the laser to do her scrapbooking stuff. They are actually made from thin cardboard. I cut out a bit of scrap wood and stained it then glued on the gears and gave it a quick coat of polyurethane, then drilled holes and screwed in some cup hooks.
And voila!

This thing just keeps getting cooler and cooler all the time.

I wonder how many of those gears it would take to cover the rest of it? (grin)

Tuesday (my Friday) is going to be National Chocolate Chip Day, International Family Day, Nylon Stockings Day, Straw Hat Day and Peace Officer Memorial Day.

Have a chocolate chip on me. And remember our fallen officers.

Not Giving Chase

So I'm sitting up in my office this evening...

Actually I wasn't even sitting yet. I had just got back to my office and poured a cup of coffee when Meatball called me on the radio to come back out to the front of the house.

The part of the yard that we can call "ours" in 10 house is pretty big. I would say all told somewhere between eight and ten acres. We don't use all of that. It's just there. Little hills and valleys and a creek running through it and all.

It's germane to the story. I'm getting there.

Anyway I get out to the front of the house and I see Meatball standing there with an inmate from 30 house and I'm wondering what he's doing there. Then I notice two things in rapid succession. One- The inmate is holding a leash that isn't attached to a dog. And two- there is a dog running wild all over my yard.

And buddy, she was having her a run. As they say around here, she was "Flat gettin' it." Running so fast her feet barely touched the ground half the time. Chasing squirrels and birds and frogs and leaves and anything that moved and some things that didn't. She even almost caught a bird in flight. Missed it by inches.

By the time she was done there wasn't a critter showing it's face anywhere on 10 yard. She probably run ten laps easy. And that inmate was running back and forth trying to catch her but she was having none of that.

There was no way I was going to join the chase. I knew she'd get tired running like that pretty quick. Sure enough, after about five minutes of running flat out her tongue was hanging low and the inmate handler managed to snag her as she jumped over the creek for the umpteenth time.

It seems that she had seen a squirrel over by 30 house and slipped her leash, chasing it all the way around 10 house and then when she saw all that open space she decided to go for some exercise.

Who am I to argue? But I am certainly not going to try and chase a dog that can run like that.

No freaking way. Just like the inmates. Where are they going to go? Let them run in circles.

They always get tired and stop in the end.

Just so you know I am going to cut back on my posting a little bit. Or try to, anyway. I'm starting to struggle to write a post every night and I'm becoming frequently unsatisfied with the quality of my posts.

So unless something phenomenal or particularly funny happens I'm going to cut down to about three posts a week. Not sure of a schedule yet. Guess I have to work on that. So if you see a post with nothing but the holidays listed, that meant that nothing good happened or I'm not pissed off about anything in particular.

No news is good news, right?

Monday is going to be National Dance Like A Chicken Day, The Stars And Stripes Forever Day, Underground America Day and National Buttermilk Biscuit Day.

Dance like a chicken! Yeah! Shake your tail feathers......

My New Job Description

So I wander outside of the house this evening and Miz Slim has a couple of inmates out front watering the flowers and the plants outside the house.

It turns out that they are also supposed to water the garden out front where they have planted cauliflower and stuff like that. I don't know why, but they swore they were supposed to do it.

The problem is that even with two hoses hooked together there isn't enough to reach the garden so they fill up these little three gallon watering jugs and walk out to the garden, water a patch and then come back for a refill.

No big deal, right? They're inmates and they are supposed to work and this is what they are supposed to do.

The problem is the hose. A hose can and is considered an escape tool. I guess you could use it like a rope to get over the fences. So any inmate with a hose has to be supervised.

Since everyone else was busy, I volunteered to be the Designated Hose Monitor.

I tell ya. That just about wore me out. Sat on that picnic table for almost an hour, watching them water the plants. Man, I monitored them so hard..... I almost had to go home afterwards, I was so worn out.

And except for making Tilt blow his fruit drink out his nose, that was about the high point of my day. Of course that was pretty freaking hilarious as well.

I'll have to remember how I did that so I can do it again.

I'm just an evil basticule like that.

Sunday, aside from being Mother's Day, is going to be Leprechaun Day, Frog Jumping Day, Rural Life Sunday and National Apple Pie Day.

Maybe Mom, out in here rural cabin, will bake you an apple pie.

As long as your Mom isn't a leprechaun or a jumping frog, anyway.

It's A Goat Rope

My old drill sergeant would have called it a "Chinese Fire Drill." As I got older and more sophisticated I just called it a cluster-f*ck.

What it all boils down to is having too many goats and not enough rope.

They have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that it was time to tear down the little shack that we used to pat search the inmates on the way in and out of laundry and build a new bigger facility. Supposedly with the aim of strip searching them all both coming and going.

I can't really see that happening with any regularity. Not with only one officer down there and often more than a hundred offenders. The searches alone would take hours.

At any rate, they have torn down a bit of the fence to access the shack so we have decided to route the offenders all the way around the building past the semi trucks and the sallyport gate. To facilitate this we have two laundry officers, the nine yard officer and now two supervisors (if available, if not at least one) to make sure nobody runs off during their trip around the building.

Since we do a good number of our movements down there after dark, they have set up some temporary lights plugged into a hundred foot extension cord.

Nice. So they are now in an area with no razor wire on top of the fences and we have supplied them with a handy hundred foot rope.

Are we geniuses or what?

Granted, we have staff down there when they are outside of the building. Supposedly. But it only takes a few seconds for one of them to be long gone.

I really don't see a better solution to the problem, unfortunately. If we'd have had more time to think about it, we might have come up with something better, I don't know. But this is the solution we're stuck with so I guess we have to make the best of a bad situation.

But pulling this when we are already short staff just isn't cool. Every year we have to work with more inmates and less officers.

Where does it end?

One day the place will be packed full right up to the top of the fence and there will be one officer outside with half a can of expired pepper spray saying "Y'all be good now, okay? Don't make me come in there!"

Hopefully I will be long retired and far away from this place by that time.

Hopefully.

Saturday is going to be Limerick Day, Hug Your Cat Day, National Windmill Day and International Nutty Fudge Day.

There was a young man from Nantucket.....

Oops. Never mind......

Skip This Post If You Have A Weak Stomach

I sometimes talk about "The Good Old Days" down in the Hive.

But really they weren't all that good. It's always been a dangerous nasty place to work and back then it was even nastier and more dangerous. Lots of uses of force and lots of assaults on staff and lots of chances to get hurt or come down with some nasty disease or both.

One of their favorite pastimes back then was to play with their poop. Not just throwing it at us, which did happen quite often. But painting with it like toddlers in the bathtub.

I never really figured out exactly why they did that. I guess they thought they were "getting back" at us for whatever reason. It never really bothered me all that much. I didn't have to clean it up. We have other inmates for that.

This kind of shenanigans used to occur quite often. And quite often more than once a day. We worked our poor bio-hazard worker half to death some nights.

Me, I just smeared some Vicks under my nose and went on about my business.

Anyway, that practice kind of tapered off after awhile, much to our relief. It wasn't really all that much fun having to wrestle with an inmate covered in poop, believe me. More than once I had to sit in Central in a pair of borrowed pants while my uniform got washed. And I used to keep a bucket of bleach water by the back door to dip my boots in when I came home at night. We had little ones in the house back than and I didn't want to track that stuff on my carpets at home.

In those days the floors in the Hive were often awash with all sorts of nasty things, including almost every sort of body fluid you can imagine.

But it hasn't gone on in quite some time. Thankfully.

Tonight when I got down there I knew something was going on. There was a familiar.... scent in the air. It almost made me nostalgic for a moment. When i got inside they told me that two of their wobbleheads on suicide watch had been playing in their poop repeatedly throughout the day.

That made me real eager to get to work..... yeah.

Luckily, we managed to forestall any further nonsense on our shift. I guess the two idiots had gotten tired and decided to lay down for awhile. Maybe they were empty and just saving up for the next salvo, I don't know. But for whatever reason, I didn't care.

I'm just glad I didn't have to wrestle a naked man covered in poop.

And I'm pretty damn happy about that, thank you.

So here's the weekend lineup:
Wednesday will be Lost Sock Memorial Day (with a special lint candle light vigil), National Night Shift Workers Day, School Nurse Day and National Butterscotch Brownie Day.

Thursday will be Clean Up Your Room Day, Lupus Day, Windmill Day and National Shrimp Day.

Friday will be Eat What You Want Day and Twilight Zone Day as well as Child Care Provider Day and Military Spouse Appreciation Day.

Me, I'll be moving the furniture. Wheee!

That's Crazy Talk!

I only got viscerally involved in this one, but it was too good to pass up.

At one point this evening I heard the laundry officer call Sgt Uncle T and say he had one in cuffs. I stepped out front, just in case. But he went willingly and there wasn't any problem so I went back to my office and my coffee pot.

A little while later I get a call from Holler over in 30 house. He says that the ladies from laundry are there and they had a violation for me to read. Making a big show over what an inconvenience it was with a grin on my face all the while, I made my way over there.

When I get there one of the laundry staff ladies hands me a violation. I always like to read over them just to make sure they sound okay and there aren't any major errors.

In a nutshell and a bit paraphrased, it said this:
Offender Knucklehead came up to me and pointed at the other laundry supervisor and said "If you stay here for five years like she has, your butt will get just as big as hers. I don't even know how she manages to put her pants on. Maybe she uses baby oil."

I snorted out loud and had to clap a hand over my mouth. Finally I managed to croak "Did he really say that?" When she said yes I turned away to calm myself (under the guise of getting the keys to the office) and tried hard to swallow the loud guffaws that were threatening to tear out of my throat.

Regaining my composure somewhat I said "What an idiot."

While I'm reading the violation to this guy he's looking at me like I'm speaking Swahili or something. I suspect it's an act, but he could just really be that stupid, I don't know. When I get done I ask (like always) "Do you have a brief statement?"

He breaks into this big long rant, trying to reconstruct the entire conversation one piece at a time. All the while Tilt is standing there just in case he flies off the handle. We finally got him stopped and I distilled his rant down to "I didn't say that." and called it good.

And he was a good distraction because while I was reading that violation out loud, I came really close to breaking out in uncontrollable laughter again. Especially when I got to the part about the baby oil.

Even now I am getting cramps in my jaws thinking about it.

What a freaking idiot.

I know the laundry supervisor he was referring to. She's a nice lady and pretty tough and I think she would have snapped him in half if he had pissed her off enough. And her.... fundament.. is nowhere near as big as he was making it out to be. Just to be quite clear on that.

Not that I've been looking or anything...... I'm just saying.

So.... backing away slowly from that now......

Tuesday I'll be in the Hive. Yee-haw. Ah well, it's my Friday.
Tuesday will also be No Socks Day and Have A Coke Day as well as National Teacher Day, V-E Day, Red Cross day and National Coconut Cream Pie Day.

Have No Socks and a smile!

Or something like that.

Those Crazy People!

Got a call on the radio, not long after the start of shift, from one of the nurses down in CTC. It's at the other end of 10 house where I work and they keep the really crazy inmates down there.

Normally we don't go down there much, unless there's a problem. It's actually manned by mental health staff, without any CO's assigned to the place. It's a weird setup, but there you are.

Anyway, she sounded a little flustered on the radio so I trotted on down there. One of their little wobbleheads had been acting funny, especially around female staff. Being aggressive and watching them closely and making rude remarks and actually being a bit threatening. He had that nurses nerves frayed.

I called and said I might be locking one up and they sent Lt Wyatt down to talk to him and assess the situation. The little knucklehead had calmed down some and I let him go eat with the others while Lt Wyatt talked to the nurse. I kept an eye on our problem child.

After talking to the nurse, Lt Wyatt says "I'm locking him up."

I said "Okey dokey. I was going to do that anyway. When he gets done eating I'll cuff him up."

He says "Let me talk to him first. Maybe calm him down some. But we might end up having a use of force on him."

I grinned. I couldn't help it. That big grin just spread all over my face before I could stop it. He rolls his eyes and goes "Oh snap!" (or something like that) Then he looks at me and says "Just don't spray him, okay?"

Oh, just tie my hands.

Okay. Just for the record, I have never sprayed Lt Wyatt during a use of force.

Not that I can remember anyway. He's just a little skittish.

Well, it turned out okay. The little wobblehead cuffed up and thought about resisting for just a second. Then he felt my hand on the center of his back and decided that getting squirrely standing between two six foot tall guys who hurt people for a living probably wasn't the best idea. Lt Wyatt escorted him down the the Hive himself without incident.

So all's well that ends well, I guess.

I didn't really want to wrestle with him, anyway.

Monday is going to be International Tuba Day, Paste Up Day, and National Roast Leg of Lamb Day.

I don't think I have ever had a leg of lamb. For that matter, I've never had a tuba, either.

Rearranging The Furniture

Those of you who have been reading this mess for awhile have seen pictures of my desk. It hasn't changed all that much over the years.

And yes, it's still a mess, as you can see.

There's actually two desks, back to back. The second one is pretty much just a stuff catcher. I seem to have an aversion to empty horizontal spaces.

The wife and I bought this desk at either a yard sale or a thrift store about fifteen or more years ago. I don't think we paid more than about twenty dollars for it.

Over the years I have had to repair it several times and add pieces here and there to keep it from falling apart. It's just old press-board junk covered with a fake wood veneer.

But hey. It was a desk. It held my stuff.

This morning she tells me she had seen a desk for sale at a thrift store and did I want to go look at it? So I got shoes on and we went to look. It was a simple plain wooden desk, nothing fancy. It didn't have a hutch on top, but she said it would be easy for me to build one.

She's always so supportive of my efforts to build things. If she had an inkling of the ratio of wood destroyed to wood actually used successfully...

Anyway, while we were looking, we saw this thing.
I thought it was an entertainment center. It's mungous and heavy. Parts of it seem to be solid oak. Then, when you open the doors....
It's a desk! And a really awesome one to boot. It has a wide (wide) sliding keyboard drawer that is as wide as the desk itself. And a sliding printer drawer underneath. And a built-in breaker bar and a light.
Needless to say, I had to have the thing. Even though it was a hundred bucks (as opposed to thirty for the little plain one) I thought it was well worth the extra cash. Something like this new would probably be six or eight hundred bucks easy.

Even though it's in two sections the thing dang near killed both of us getting it unloaded and into the house. It's a good thing I have a furniture dolly to get it the rest of the way into my office or it might just have to sit there for a few years.

So I guess you can tell what I'm going to be doing this weekend. Unloading and getting rid of the two desks I have now and moving this new cool one in their place. It's going to be quite a chore but I'm sure it will be well worth it in the end.

Wheee!

Sunday is going to be Beverage Day, Buddha Day, No Diet Day, No Homework Day, Nurses Day and World Laughter Day.

A day for laughing Buddha's, no doubt.

More Monkeys!

Yargh! Some nights I come home and I have my post written already in my head by the time I pull in the driveway. I can't wait to sit down so I can pour it all out of my head and into you poor unsuspecting souls.

Then some nights, like tonight, I just sit here and there's nothing.

Things happened. Stupid stuff happened. Inmates got locked up. The Captain managed to piss me off and hurt my feelings just a little bit which pissed me off even more.

Luckily none of us got hurt and we all got to go home safe.

Well, those of us who didn't get held over to work a double got to go home, anyway. We are critically short of staff and some of the directives coming down are making that even worse.

We are all going to be working alot more overtime.

But I sit here and try to put the events of tonight in some sort of logical order or even coherent sentences and I got nothing. It's all just a mish-mash in my head right now.

I was hoping a little "free association" would help bring things a little clarity.

But that doesn't seem to be working.

I need more monkeys and more typewriters over here, ASAP!

In the meantime, I'll just slide over to the calendar like that was what I intended to do in the first place.

Saturday is going to be National Hoagie Day, Cartoonists Day, Kentucky Derby Day, National Homebrew Day and Scrapbooking Day.

Please don't run with those scissors.

That Threw Me Right Off Track

I have absolutely no idea what the dialogue in that cartoon says. Or what that thing she is threatening him with is.

The truth is I was looking for a picture to put up and I ran across this and for some reason it just blew my circuits. I cannot recall for the life of me what it was I was going to write about.

My search box in Yahoo says "chatting" so I'm assuming it had something to do with that. But whatever germ of an idea I had is just gone.

Man, I sure do hope it wasn't important.

In the meantime I'll just go check the calendar.

If it comes to me I'll let you know.

Wednesday is going to be Fire Day, The Great American Grump Out, Roberts Rule of Order Day and National Truffles Day.

Thursday will be Lumpy Rug Day, Garden Meditation Day, National Day Of Reason, Paranormal Day and National Raspberry Tart Day.

And of course Friday is National Candied Orange Peel Day, Intergalactic Star Wars Day, Respect For Chickens Day and National Orange Juice Day.

Nope. Still nothing. Snap!