Gingerbread Whut?

Late night meetings in the Spanish TV Room among O.G. (Original Gangsta), Slugger, A-Rod, El Jefe and Mobile Vending.  Inmates posted up at the door to make sure no one from another unit enters.  Prepping an innocuous looking dude to be a spy, to infiltrate the other units.  Bad jokes circulate along the lines of “your mission, should you choose to accept it….”  Rounds of drinks (actually sodas) shared between groups of guys who never talk to each other.  Then a harsh debate that devolves into laughter over the best colors to use when … painting a four foot tall model of a lollipop?   Whut? 

You read that right.  We aren’t setting up for trouble.  No uprising in the works. 

No, we are building a 6-foot model of a Gingerbread House.  That’s right, all these BA convicts are pulling together with a shared purpose and guess what?  It’s amazing how much fun people are having.  Just goes to show if you give a guy an actual goal even guys you least expect can rise to the occasion.  The administration stumbled onto genius:  A Unit vs. Unit Holiday Decorating Contest.  At first the idea was met with typical cynicism.  They have official visitors arriving next week and want to put on a dog and pony show.  F___ them, most said.  But then one guy suggested, wait a minute, this might be fun, then another guy signed on, then a third respected prisoner joined in.  Their rationale?  Look, of course this is an administrative ploy (well, probably not, just dumb luck), but screw that.  Let’s just run with it.

That’s all it took.  Isn’t the old saying, “Incarceration is the Mother of Invention?”  So now we have gumdrop and candy painters, roofers, framers, background landscapers.  I crocheted a Santa Head to poke out of the chimney.  While maybe not Macy’s Parade worthy, our Gingerbread House beats anything you would buy at Michael’s.  No Lie!  I’d put it in my yard at home.  Pardon the language, but as one of our oh-so-hard straight from the hood gangstas put it when he looked up from his work covered in pink and purple glitter, “Damn, we got some talented-ass mother f______ers in here!  Why they let us waste away in prison?”  Funny and thought-provoking.  The human warehousing system we call the BOP Must Be Fixed!  But that is another letter.  For now, I just shake my head and smile.

I mean, maybe what we have here is the real holiday spirit.  Making the most of what you have, pulling together as a team, fellowship amongst diverse people.  Laughter.  Sharing.  A common goal.  Maybe I’m completely full of shit, I don’t know.  What I do know is that it’s a lot more pleasant to hear guys arguing over the proper application of glitter instead of Lebron vs. Steph and their Ticket!  So today we are mixing paints and hoarding cardboard.  January 2^nd all this stuff will be contraband again, but oh well.  One Day at a Time!

Happy Holidays!!