Captain's Rules

I know my blog posts fluctuate between incredulous and maudlin, but most people here – both the “guests” and the guards – live those extremes.  Their actions and attitudes rarely keep to the middle of the road.  For instance, the guards are either so extremely lazy and uninvolved that they might as well be just cardboard cut-outs, or they’re so over-the-top amped and antagonistic that they do nothing but stir up trouble.  Is it asking too much to have quietly professional guards?  I don’t want to go off on a rant, but if you’ve ever read Orwell’s Animal Farm or heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment (I understand there’s a new film about that), then you may be able to imagine how our new belligerent Captain has emboldened a few uneducated knuckleheads to abuse their power over us.

We’ve begun to wonder to what lengths he will allow the guards to go.  I try to tone down some of the ridiculousness of all this when I share it with you, because “who would actually believe it?”  But here’s an example that may help clarify what I mean.  During the baseball playoffs, the tv room has always stayed open until the game ends.  One tv shows the game, but the others may be playing something on other stations.  No big deal.  Until the Captain decided that only MLB could be watched after hours.  When we made the mistake of not following that rule one night, a guard marched in, turned off all the tv’s and demanded to know who had been watching an unauthorized non-baseball station!  Of course, everyone had been watching the game (wink, wink).  So the guards decided that they could tell who’d broken the rule by where they were sitting in the room, threatening “shots” (disciplinary action) for all of us who had until their arrival simply been peacefully watching tv. 

It seems like every hour of every day some stupid behavior like this happens.  We’re all just hoping to ride it out until the Captain moves on.  Word is he wants to be a Warden and hopefully that will happen – only, please, somewhere else!  As for how nutty we guests behave, see my other posts.  For most of us, though, it all rolls off our backs.  I remind myself daily to remember kindness and compassion.  Everyone wants someone to listen to their pain, and I try whenever possible to be that guy for others.  The benefit?  You definitely hear some stories you’d never hear anywhere else!  Okay, it’s cool and drizzly today.  Gotta go grab my orange hat and say hi! to the Captain!