Where Every Day Is Christmas

Thought this was pretty funny.  From the Province Newspaper.

Christmas in prison — you’d be surprised at how similar it is to the world beyond the fence. The only thing missing is the rum … and the eggnog … and the crackling fireplace … and the cinnamon-scented snow-bunny cooing select bars of “Let It Snow” in my ear. OK, so it’s a little different. But on a week when all of capitalism is stuffing its boxes with fantasies-on-credit, I’m remembering some other gift-wrapped containers littering the annals of Big House infamy — like the one used in an escape from maximum security a dozen springtimes ago.

I’ve always wondered what the officer running the admission and discharge desk at Kent Institution was thinking that day. It was a Wednesday and, according to rumour, the con who showed up at the desk that morning was the only one being released for the week. Maximum security is the original “Roach Motel” — many check in, few leave. The guy had only been in for a couple of years, so he couldn’t have had much in the way of personal property; a portable TV maybe, some personal clothing, a few salacious snapshots of girls gone by.

And an oversized, heavy-gauge cardboard box, smothered in clear packing tape.

“What’s in the big box?” the officer guarding the desk must have asked.

“Oh, just hobby stuff,” said the poker-faced con. As the story goes, he then wove an elaborate tale of some off-shift hobbies officer who had bundled up the table-sized parcel the previous evening. Apparently, the soon-to-be-ex con even had the right forms — meticulously completed and signed.

Less work for me, the guard must have thought. Or maybe his frontal lobe was filled with daydreams of double-overtime paycheques. Regardless, this was the fork in the road where due process and due diligence parted company. Big mistake. Prison may not be the first place you’d go looking for a MENSA meeting, but it is a place with no shortage of balls. read article.