DannyBoyinExile

Yesterday started off as a typical Groundhog Day around here. When your schedule, routine, and activities are exactly the same each day, it’s easy for them to blur together as the days turn into weeks, months, and years.
I woke up at the same time, went to work, and kept myself busy like I do every day. As I talked to the guys in the holding cages who were in the process of going to lockup, I found out that they’d found yet another cell phone on my wing (they don’t call it T-Mobile for nothing!), and were actively searching it – yet again. Nothing abnormal about that, either.
What WAS different is that a guy in another cage was actually a casualty of the aforementioned shakedown. He was irate, because he had nothing to do with a phone, but he was in the process of making some homemade wine (“hooch”), and it was JUST ABOUT ready. Rather than lose it to the guards, he did what any sensible inmate would do: he grabbed a few bottles and started chugging them, as fast as he possibly could.
The guards could only sputter and say, “What are you doing?! That’s evidence!”
Quite reasonably, he told them, “Don’t worry – there’s plenty left. You ain’t getting ALL of it!” haha
I found this hilarious. Not only was the guy obviously drunk (the inmate, not the guard who found it) – he had to be at least 65 years old!
It really wasn’t a typical day when, a few minutes later, I hear the guy cussing out the head Warden! (Clearly, his batch of wine had been ready for consumption.) Kudos to the Warden for ignoring the guy, and realizing it was futile to stop and argue with him.
I felt sorry for the old guy, though (the inmate, I mean), so I made sure a fan was pointed in his direction and he had plenty of water to drink. (Once the Warden was safely out of range, that is!) This earned me a litany of drunken praise, but I was merely being courteous to my elders, like I was raised to do. My grandmother would’ve been proud. (Of me, I mean. Him? Not so much…)
The poor guy will probably be in a heap of trouble now – but not as much as the guy who got caught with the phone. As for me, I got back to work, went home at the same time, ate chow at the same time, and went to bed at the same time. Tomorrow I’ll get up at the same time, and start all over again.
Each day may seem the same, and each day may even contain some sort of drama. But as long as it’s somebody else’s drama, and not mine, I know I’m doing the right thing. Inmates will do what inmates do, of course – but as long as they do it away from me, it’s none of my business. So says DannyBoy.