The Sounds of Early Morning

At about 6:15 I ran out of my door and dropped my keys down the temporary metal ramp my husband had leaned against the porch seven years earlier, when we built the house in lew of the wooden stairs he had planned. It was startling cold with a wind chill of minus 14 below and I was running late. Normally I would have been at work already for a good half an hour, mediating my crew, but this morning it was too cold for me to leave my cozy bed. My keys made a scratching sound on the ramp before coming to a crunching stop at the gravel. The wild cats meowed their good mornings as they rose with a rustle from their recycling box homes when I headed to my cold jeep to rev it's frozen engine into life. The heater whooshed frosty air on my ankles. My wind chimes clinked with a brittle sound in the wind on my porch when I stepped out of my car. Hubby had proudly made them out left over polished brass pipe from his last job for me. I hated them at first. I was annoyed that they broke my silence. I would pull it's clanker over the banister to quieten them. But now I think of him when I hear them, how he tried to make me something beautiful instead of practical. I always welcome the sound of his love.
There was a rustling sound in the hen house, but not yet a crow. The chickens were not fast to leave their warm beds ether.
I clunked back across my deck into the house for my warm cup of coffee to go, and my brief case when I was greeted by K1 who had slipped in front of the kitchen TV in my short absents outside.
"Morning Mom", his greeting is brief, knowing I can only grunt at him this time of day. The smack of our lips is heard over the morning news."Ugh coffee breath", he mutters.
I hear the sound of the steady hum of the oxygen machine being turned off and know Hubby is now awake and will not let me out of his sight without some conversation to start his day.
I slip out the door as fast and soft as I can without spilling my coffee.
On the radio in my jeep the local DJ is talking of the untimely death of the singer from Quiet Riot.
I sing along to "Come on feel the noise", in my morning frog voice as I pull out of my drive. I hurt my own ears and embarrass myself in front of me. I gave myself a warning glare in the rear view mirror, but was glad when I could not see myself.

For the War but Against the Troops

I know certain people on my staff go threw my desk. My desk is in a locked office but every one in my company has a key because that is where we store the cantraband (ceyanne pepper for making home made mace, yeast for hooch, ect...). There are few seacrets in the kitchen as the cilivan cooks bid their time gossiping about the fellow co-workers. I figured out they have been going through my papers for some time, as they are not very good at putting my things back. I now lock the confedental papers in my supervisiors office- the one only I have a key for.
But last week I threw them a test crumb.
I wrote two of the biggest know it all's names on one of my note pads really hard.

JOAN
>FIRE
MIKE


Then I tore the top page off the note pad and left the imprints behind that was barley discernible.


Yesterday was a pleasure to work as now those two snoops think they will be fired. Somehow the entire place knows, including guards and the other shifts. I can not wait for one of them to build up the courage to ask me if they still have a job.

The Day is Coming

7:am-I stood in my bathroom pinning back my hair and rehearsing the phase, "So you quite?" and I got the page. A coat of gloss and I was out the door.

8:am-I am in the bubble listening to the morning cook's tiraid on the no show of the baker/truck driver. I listened but did not giggle or roll my eyes. The more she swore and vented, the better I felt.

9:am- I placed the order for the next food delivery. $1,465. Questioned Jim if he was feeling better. (He had called in sick and had gone to the Packer game.) Greeted Antoine with a cheerful good morning. (Was not acknowledged.)

10:am- Sat through the longest drawn out possible new hire meeting ever.

11:am- Met my bosses, bosses, boss. My boss to the third power explained he was there due to Antoine. I could not fire him because of lack of paper work from Gerald (my boss). Antoine just needed a talking to. And he had to talk to morning cook about anger management classes.

12:00- Boss to the third explained to me Gerald is not coming back. (He was transferred to another facility.) Asked if I could handle rest of the week without him. I nodded yes and wondered if he knew I had been by myself most days since I took the job 2 months ago. Told me had I been there longer than 6 months, I would of gotten the job. I thanked him and asked where the mail room was.

1:pm -Saw the deaf child molester in the kitchen and wondered how he got back into the kitchen after getting fired. (Can't I get rid of anyone?)

1:05- Had a face screaming caption questioning my why I hired deaf creep back.

1:30- Meeting with 5 yuppy yups about deaf guy's forged rehire papers. reshedualed follow up meeting for Friday.

1:45 -Watched lying deaf guy get re-fired and escorted out. Hid everything that had my signature on it.

2:pm- Talked to Sandy the Finnish guard from Maugha about bread. Found out she used to be a bouncer at the homeless shelter downtown. Our grandparents are from the same town.


3:pm-Called Gerald and asked who my new boss is. Steve will be new boss. Was told Steve is very similar to Gerald, but I will need to write my own rules.

4:pm- Found the damn mail box on my own.

The Axe

I can't wait until Wednesday. I can't wait and I'll tell you why. Wednesday is the day I get to fire Antoine. That's why. I am glad.
Antoine should have been fired a long time and many reasons ago, but my boss has this thing called a heart and won't do it. I have wanted to fire that lazy slug the day I first laid eyes on him.
Oh sure, having this employee around (he is not an inmate, he is one of my company) makes me look smarter and more ambitious but man I can replace him with a comatose three toed slough.
I am more excited about this right now than my upcoming Maui trip, the polar plunge, working with Solie Anderson, and that nother child I can't tell you about yet, and the big family reunion thing.
Technically mind you I am only to suspend Antoine, and I will do it in a very nice professional manner. But I will let him take it as a challenge and quit.

Bless my Pig

We can't serve pork in prison. None. Even though it is an inexpensive type of protein, the inmate's can't have it. Even though the majority of population would love a good chop, Muslims and Jews might accidentally consume it and there would be lawsuits. Law suits and riots. That is why every one on the inside wants to be a wiccan.
Convicts are allowed one religious feast a year. The native American population request venison and wild rice. Ramadan, roast beef and cheese cake. The wiccans, got wise and claim pig (and spumoni ice cream ) as part of their ritual. Suddenly, in mid October, everyone is begging me to work on halloween.
I had to order three times as much pork roast as what was needed for the number of self professed nature worshipers. The stuff just disappeared. Con's would sneak the meat out raw, and using a lead pencil and an electric outlet for a spark, to cook it over a paper fueled fire in their cell, one bite at a time.
Part of the wiccan celebration ritual, the high priest told me, as to have an extra "offering" feast plate prepared to be left out for their spirit ghost.
The high priest did send me the most polite thank you letter complimenting the special food and effort that when into the harvest feast.
Of course, by the time I received it, the priest was doing his time in the seg hole. He didn't realize our camera's videoed him stealing the spirit ghosts meal.

*all religion must be a documented religion of a non violent nature. you must attend 2 services lead by an ordained leader or witnessed by a certified worship leader

Down in Front

She sat in the back of the classroom doodling on her hand out and keeping an eye on the clock. Her books were already stashed in her pack, her laptop in it's case, and her keys at the ready in her front pocket. She would be the first one out of there, and she was anxious for the day to be over. Most of all, she hoped none of the slower participants would raise their hands with redundant questions. But of course the inevitable happened just as the ICS expert wound up his talk.

"So if there isn't any questions on the importance of the procedures I covered today, I'll let you go a little early."

She grabbed up her items half rising when the lady in the new badly fitting officers uniform at the front table shot up her hand. With a groan and an eye roll the impatient one lowered herself back into her chair.

"I understand what you said about the importance of a through pat down and all, but I work in a men's prison. I'm not touching junk for eight hours a day."

"You knew when you took the job it was a men's prison?"

"Welll...yes. But sometimes at movement I have to do pat downs and there is no way I'm going to be touching that much junk."

"How would you feel if you didn't touch their junk, and that is the day one of them comes through with a shank he hide in his crotch and he stabs your co-worker with it."

"They couldn't hide a knife there."

"Sure they will. Have you looked at the confiscated weapons on the back table. Especially if they know you are the officer that doesn't touch junk. I guarantee you, if you to work in my facility, you'd be touching more junk than any hooker or urologist in Minnesota, I'd personally make sure of that. One inmate was caught not long ago with a nine pound block of cheese he jammed into his pants...."

The girl accomplished her early getaway at that point as her hoots and guffaws were disrupting the class.

A Pointless and Epic Adventure

I walked into the connivance store and bought my big ass bag of cheap chippies. The clerk smiled at me briefly before handing me my change, a five dollar bill and some coins. As I leave the store a huge gust of wind snatches the bill from my hand and throws it into the air. I chase the bill down the street. Eventually it lands in the busy road. Fear of certain death keeps me from rushing out onto the street. Instead I wait a life time for the hurtling cars to pass.
After several anxious minuets it is safe for me to retrieve the wet crumpled bill. My money is torn nearly in two. And so without a moments hesitation, I march back into that connivance store and buy myself an other big assed bag of chippies. The clerk is perplexed by my action, but I do not care. That money was clearly jinxed and I would not carry such bad karma on my person.