When I worked in Corrections, I requested two weeks off (I had been there for years and accrued plenty of paid leave), and it was given to me as I had done so months in advance for a personal event. The two weeks went by (way too quickly). I had specifically lined up my two-week break to lead into my two days off at the beginning of the break and at the end so I could maximize my time off.

However, during my normal off days, a family emergency came up that was quite serious, so I asked for another two days off to handle my situation. I was told by my direct supervisor that there was NO way she was approving that, because we are only allowed to use 84 hours of leave in one continuous block (given our rotating written schedules and 12-hour shifts, this equaled 2 weeks), and she ordered me to come in the next day, or I would receive a write-up.

I didn’t argue because I knew she was correct, so I showed up that night and reported for my shift, and much to my surprise, my Captain had called out sick, so a relief captain came in to fill her shift. I asked him to give me the next day off after my shift was over. He and I had a rapport, given the number of years we’ve worked with each other previously, and so he looked at the schedule and my leave.

Relief Captain: “You know you’ve got plenty of leave, right?”

Me: “Yes, I know. I just need some of it to handle my business tomorrow.”

Relief Captain: “No, I mean you’ve got plenty of leave to take, and the roster is filled for the next two weeks.”

Me: “Yeah, I just got off a two-week vacatio—”

I stopped because he winked at me. And it finally clicked. We can only take up to two weeks off CONSECUTIVELY. Nothing says we can’t take off two weeks, come in for… say an hour… Then go home and take off another two weeks. So, I did, and he signed the paperwork stating, “It’s not my shift. F*** that b****.”

I handled my emergency literally the next day, it turned out NOT to be as serious as we thought, and then I enjoyed another paid two weeks off from work. It was great.

To add to the bliss, I reported back from work to find out that this captain was fired and replaced for some kind of negligence or something. It was a great month.

The relief captain (who everyone liked) stayed for a couple more years before retiring.

This incident wrapped up a short while ago, and it was so hilarious in hindsight that I decided to share.

My friend got picked up for public intoxication on Saint Patrick’s Day. I figured he would get tossed in the drunk tank, sober up, and pay whatever fines he accrued, and I’d go pick him up from jail and bring him home. This was not what happened.

He was in jail for a couple of days, which seemed odd for a basic public intoxication charge. It turned out he had a warrant from another city for escaping jail! 

Apparently, the year before, he had also been picked up on Saint Patrick’s Day for public intoxication. (This seems to be a bit of a tradition for him.)

He had a hazy memory of being shuffled down a hallway with a bunch of other Saint Paddy’s drunkards at the jail. What happened next isn’t entirely clear, but his next memory was walking through a door and suddenly finding himself alone, outside.

After swaying in the breeze for a minute or two, he just drunkenly shrugged to himself and wandered home to sleep it off. The police never came looking for him, and he was just enough sheets into the wind to only be barely aware it had happened at all. After dealing with the subsequent hangover, he shrugged it off as a dream that happened at some point after the alcohol kicked in.

It turned out that they had never even properly booked him. This means that while there was a warrant for him, there was no record of him actually being arrested.

Now, I’m no expert, but I do watch a lot of videos on YouTube about arrests, and the police are supposed to walk with you through the entire process of being booked and dropped behind bars. 

My only guess was that a small comedy of errors happened. Maybe far too many drunks had been picked up at once to properly keep track of them all. Maybe some overworked, harried officer had failed to pay attention to which door they were shoving a random drunk fellow through and then forgot in the hustle. Maybe the random, quiet drunk was ignored in favor of a more belligerent one, and my drunk friend had wandered off in a sloshy stupor.

Whatever the situation may have been, my friend’s case was dismissed. I advised him to lighten up on the holidays because it’s unlikely to go so sweetly the next time the green beer hits.

Long backstory aside, my sister and I were at a visitation facility where our mother was allowed to see us while staff supervised from afar.

On this sunny summer’s day, we were eating outside. While we sat at the picnic table, a wasp started buzzing around, scaring my sister. So, I did what any terrified child would do and trapped the pest under my cup.

Crisis averted, we continued with lunch and then moved on to playing in the large garden. Except, the wasp wasn’t the only one. We still had two more cups from lunch, which trapped two more wasps. When a fourth showed up, I went and found a load more cups.

My sister and I made a game of trapping as many as we could while our mother watched. The idea was that once we were done, we could play safety, but time ran out before we caught them all.

There had to have been many twenty or more upside-down cups in that garden, each with a very angry wasp stuck underneath. It’s only all these years later that I realised the person who had to clean all that up would not have had a fun time.

When I was first put in jail, I searched the library cart for something to read. The TVs were controlled by certain cliques, and just about the only thing they ever played was ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network). I do not care about sports in the slightest.

Among the stacks of religious books, thirty-year-old and mainly discredited self-help books, and cheap airport paperbacks, I DID manage to find something worth reading: “Hamlet”.

I was sitting on my bunk reading it, and one cellmate saw it.

Cellmate: “What is that?”

Me: “Oh, it’s Hamlet. I know, pretty cheesy, but it’s about the only thing worth reading on the library cart.”

Cellmate: “What’s Hamlet?”

Me: “You know… Hamlet… by Shakespeare.”

Cellmate: “What’s Shakespeare?”

Me: “You’re kidding, right?”

Cellmate: *Completely blank face* “No. What is it?”

Me: “Wow, I’d at least think you’d have heard of him in high school, or through pop culture osmosis or something. He’s only the most well-known writer in the English language.”

Cellmate: “Nah, I usually only know about rap music.”

Me: “Ooookay, hang on…”

I flipped over to the “To be or not to be” soliloquy and read/acted it out for him.

Cellmate: “Wow, that’s pretty cool. I really like that ‘For in that sleep of death what dreams may come’ part the best! Has this guy… What was his name again?”

Me: “…William Shakespeare,”

Cellmate: “Yeah! Has he written any other stuff?”

I was unable to shake the feeling I was being pranked.

Me: “Yeah… He’s written a few things.”

Cellmate: “Cool. I’ll have to look him up. That ‘For in that sleep of death what dreams may come’ part would make a dope rap song!”

I am a prison officer in a male prison, and while I am cisgender female, I am also openly pansexual, and I’m very active/supportive of the LGBTQI+ community.

In conversation with a colleague, he jokingly shares what he thinks is a funny story about a recent intake, who (while still legally required to be housed in a men’s prison) is openly transfemale. He continually refers to this person using their deadname.

Me: “You mean, [Female/Preferred Name].”

Colleague: “No, his name on [System] is [Deadname].”

Me: “Would you like me to prove you wrong?”

I bring up the person’s profile and point out the section for identified gender and preferred name.

Colleague: “HA! ‘Preferred’ name. But his legal name is still [Deadname].”

Me: “Like how my legal name is [My Full Name], but my preferred name is [Shortened Version]?”

Colleague: “…”

Me: “Besides which, under the current departmental policy, you are required to acknowledge her identified gender and refer to her by her preferred name, regardless of your own personal bigotry regarding trans people.”

He left the room shortly after and has not spoken to me since.

I don’t miss our talks.