Glad That's Over!

Whew! I'm glad that night is over. What a freaking nightmare.

You know, working in a prison is very dicey at times. It's alot like working around large dangerous machinery or caustic chemicals or one of those biotech labs where you have to wear the big space suits all the time. All it takes is one screwup to ruin your whole day.

This afternoon a combination of things all happened at the same time and managed to screw up our count something wonderful. And one of the things we tend to take pretty seriously is our count. If count is bad, nothing else happens until we get it right again.

We knew it was going to be complicated, because it was transfer day and, as usual, the transfers showed up right before count. Really should do something about that timing.

Like I said, a combination of things happened and we could just not get the numbers to add up. We kept having different places recount and I'd call the Lt and give an update.

Finally, we had to admit defeat and the Captain said "Send them all back and do a name and number count." and he came up to the control center to supervise, as he was supposed to do. We sent all the inmates back to their houses and called for a name and number count.

I suspected where one of the problems was, but the only way to be sure was to send them all back and do a name and number count, which we did. And when it finally cleared (almost an hour late) it turned out I was right, but by then it was too late to do anything about it.

So everybody managed to get all pissed off about count being screwed up and everything being late. Some square staff case manager came up and chewed out one of my officers for being curt with him on the phone during the count while I was off doing something else. I wish I had been there. I would have been curt with him in person. And probably made a remark about wearing his big girl panties to work next time.

Not very professional of me, I know. Still getting the hang of this stuff.

And more odd things happened.

A car was driving slowly up and down the public road behind the prison and making the P-car drivers nervous. We're trained to watch for suspicious activity and that looked suspicious.

About the time I was on the phone reporting that to the Captain, the guy driving suspiciously was on the phone trying to get hold of me. Turns out he lives back there. And there's a mother fox and her kits living down by the firing range and he was driving back and forth hoping his kids would get to see them.

I explained that my guys were doing their jobs and that making people with loaded shotguns nervous wasn't a good idea but I was glad his kids got to see the foxes.

Then the other P-car driver came up and got me and said he thought there was a bag of clothes down by the training building. I almost freaked out when he said that and I was glad he didn't say it on the radio. That would have gotten us locked right back down again and started another count.

Turned out it wasn't clothes at all, but a bag of string mop heads for the porter in the training building. Someone had just hung them over the railing and left them there by mistake.

All in all, the whole night left me feeling drained. If I hadn't had a good crew up there, I would have been seriously hosed.

But it's over now. Nobody escaped and nobody got hurt. That's what counts.

So Wednesday is going to be National Columnists Day, Decide To Be Married Day, "Happy Birthday To You" Day and National Indian Pudding Day.

Thursday is going to be Paul Bunyan Day, National Bomb Pop Day, National Handshake Day and National Tapioca Day.

Friday will be Camera Day, Leap Second Time Adjustment Day, NOW (National Organization for Women) Day and National Almond Buttercrunch Day.

How many Indians do you need to make that pudding?