436 more working days

Not that I'm counting.

Maybe you don"t know what I do and maybe you do, because it is a running thread through my entire blog. I work at a non Death Row, level 4 prison. That we are dysfunctional is a given, since we surround ourselves with both sociopaths and psychopaths day in and day out. We have sort of of polygon shaped administrative model...five very unstable and unequal sides with no visable means of support. It just depends on who is hollering the loudest.

There are things I do to amuse myself, just to keep my sanity topped off. My favorite thing to do is to turn on one of my inmates (he has to have just stepped on my one last nerve)and just deliver the most venomousness, viperish tongue lashing possible. The words come hissing out of my mouth and it is truly a show stopper. It's good for maybe 4 entire weeks of good behavior from everyone.

One, because right now, I only have a couple of students who even know I speak Spanish. Two, that's I rip into them so fiendishly.

I've given this a lot of thought and I do believe that when an individual only has xy chomosomes to work with (women have perfectly balanced xx chromosomes) I think they ARE missing something.My time in the Big House only gives me daily proof of this.

Big Mouth Jones (not his name, but appropriate!) is doing his second prison term for murdering a guy who disrespected him. His first term was done for attempted murder on a guy who disrespected him. So to say that he has some anger management problems, along with poor life choices....well, that is putting it lightly.

So BMJ has skipped class 9 times. Each time he skips class, I write him up. He gets really mouthy and cannot control himself, so I toss him out of class---he says some pretty awful things to me. Nothing you wouldn't hear in a high school hallway, but not something I want to hear.

So yesterday, he sits down to have a heart to heart with me, since he still believes I HAVE a heart. Sorry to disappoint, but I do not. I was married to two very bad men and they beat all that nonsense right out of me.

So BMJ patiently explains that we have a personality conflict: I want him to work and he is just waiting to pass the test so the he can score high enough to immediately get out of class. It doesn't work that way.They might get out within 48 hours but it more like somewhere around 3 months (of the ninth ring of Hades). But until then, this is what is going to work. I'll pretend I care about your miserable, misbegotten life and you'll pretend you care about learning to read,. Because the onliest inmates I know that give me a fight about taking a reading test are the ones who CAN. NOT. READ.

So the way I handle it is attempting to run in the morning. Swim 10 laps. Shoot twice a week, Work on a knitting or sewing project because as long as they aren't in you're real life, they aren't in there at all.

This is just a high security job where the people who think a polite good morning and murder are interchangable for an appropriate early morning chit chat.

Highly crazy place.