I'm not exactly sure who keeps dropping their hammer, but I wish they would quit dropping it on us. Between day shift and evenings, we did twenty lockups yesterday.There was one available bed when we left the house last night.
And I hadn't slept at all the previous night. I don't know what that was all about. I spent the night sleeping in five minute increments. I probably should have called out and stayed home. I was barely coherent. Mostly did my job in automatic mode. As long as I was active and thinking and moving, I was okay. Made some good decisions. But if I sat still and tried to look at the computer or something, my eyes started crossing.
And the drive home was a little bit frightening. That wasn't safe at all.
But I survived. Obviously.
We had an interesting and busy night. They were locking offenders up so fast we were just sticking them where they could go as fast as they came in the house. And a few of them were trying to check in from their cellies just as fast as we put them in there.
And a couple of them decided it was a good time to get stupid, as well. Idiots. When we are that busy and that stressed is not a good time to stand up on your hind legs and act the fool. It's a real good way to find out which bits of you are crunchy and which bits just go squish.
Nothing happened, but it was a close call. We had Sergeant Bowstring last night. He used to be on my old crew back when he was just a CO1. He was a real hell raisin fool back then. Seems to have mellowed a bit in his old age but the fire is still there if it's needed. As I was leaving he smiled and said "It was almost like the good old days, huh?"
Back when he and I were working together we had weeks and months when the craziness just didn't stop down in the Hive. We would get into a use of force early in the shift and as soon as we got back from doing the paperwork on that one, we get into another. It wasn't anything we did on purpose, it just happened that way.
For the most part, anyway. Sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do. Every once in awhile there is an inmate with a big red "X" on his forehead that says "Insert pepper spray here." And we'd smile and jump right on it. Those were the days......
And it seems like we might be heading in that direction again. We seem to be getting more and more of the real idiots that just can't or won't learn. The ones that don't realize that they are in prison and not in kindergarten.
I can live with that. Makes life interesting.
But I do hope today is calmer. Even though I got some sleep I'm still pretty tired.
