DannyBoyinExile

They say that you should never make fun of anyone, because the same thing could end up happening to you – and I learned this lesson firsthand recently! Last week, my cellie was finally able to get to commissary to pick up the eComm his family ordered for him. After waiting for nearly two weeks, he was excited about all the things he was about to pick up – and honestly, he had ME a little excited, too! So I couldn’t help but laugh when he showed back up an hour later, empty-handed.
It’s not at all uncommon to be rejected from the commissary line, when there are too many people in line, or they stopped running it for some reason, or maybe the guard at the gate was in a bad mood and just didn’t WANT to let you get in line. But that usually happens right away – and my cellie was gone for over an hour!
Come to find out, he was actually at the window, with two bags of commissary in his hands, and telling the lady what he wanted to substitute for the things they were out of. Suddenly, due to a computer error (or maybe even OPERATOR error, if the lady hit the wrong button somehow), his transaction was booted from the terminal – and he had to wait until the next business day (which was TWO DAYS LATER, on Monday!) before they could correct it and give him his stuff!
I’m sure he was irate, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it, but give them his commissary back. Honestly, I’d never even HEARD of that happening to anyone before – which made it all the more hilarious to me. (To him, not so much.) Well, a few days go by, and he gets his eComm after all, and a few more days later, it’s our wing’s commissary day.
I had the faith of the proverbial mustard seed that I would make my way there somehow – and I did. I went to chow, made a U-turn in the hallway, and talked my way past the guard at the gate. An hour or so later, I’M at the window, filling my bags with much-anticipated junk food, when the commissary lady says, “Oh my God…” Before I could say WHAT?, she said, “The computers just went down. You’re gonna have to give me that stuff back.”
I’m like, “What?!” But there was nothing that either of us could do about it. It’s not uncommon at all for the computer system here to go down, and there was no way for her to finish my order, or print a receipt, until it came back online. I couldn’t help but laugh, when I thought of how my CELLIE was going to laugh, when I showed back up empty-handed!
The rest of us patiently waited in line, praying to the tech gods to restore the system – but it was not to be. We stayed until 8:45pm (when it was time for commissary to close), then we went home as well. Empty-handed.
What are the odds of the same thing happening to two guys in the same cell, within a week? What’s worse is that this occurred two days ago, and I’m STILL waiting to get back to commissary and get my stuff. The only positive thing I can salvage from the situation (besides a good laugh) is that I have a little more money to spend now – so I plan to splurge a little bit. (If I ever get back down there, that is!)
It’s not uncommon for this to happen – I just hope it doesn’t become common for it to happen to ME! This unit (Wynne Unit) is really old, and is actually a hodgepodge of different wings, built at different times, that have been wired and connected together, ex posto facto. I don’t know exactly why the power and computers go offline so frequently here – but clearly they don’t either, or they’d fix it!
They always DO get it fixed, though, and we go back to business as usual. Everyone doesn’t handle the situation as well as I did – but I may not have handled it so well, had the same thing not just happened to my cellie. Keep in mind that it’s never a good idea to laugh at anyone else’s misfortunes, because the next time it might be THEM, laughing at YOU! Then it’s not nearly as funny… So says DannyBoy.