"Oops...Did I say that out loud?"

If you're going to see the humor in this little incident, you need just a tiny bit of background information about 2 points.

1. The ConQuest program at the prison is a 12-18 month drug rehab program. It is contained in a separate facility from the rest of the prison and houses about 400 inmates. This is where I teach, and these inmates are my students. ConQuest is a therapeutic community (or TC) where residents (that's what they're called rather than inmates) oversee the day-to-day workings of living, therapy, group sessions, school, seminars, etc. As a TC, each resident is partially responsible for contributing to the success of all members. The residents live in 8 dorms that house 50 guys each. These dorms can be locked down, but there are no bars or doors within the dorm. It looks more like a military barracks than anything else.

2. The high school has a separate site clerk or secretary for each of its 5 sites. I'll call ours Ms. Tayk (because she makes so many of them!) Nice lady, but not the sharpest pencil in the box. Ms. Tayk often enrolls residents in our classes, but fails to let teachers know anything about it. So new guys show up, saying "I'm in your class now." And I say something like, "No, you're not. You're not on my roll, you're not on my sign-in sheet, I don't know what you need, and I'm just not prepared for you!" It's a broken system that makes me look like an idiot 2 or 3 times a week. No amount of remediation or support seems to boost the competence of Ms. Tayk, so we patiently (or, in my case, IMpatiently) limp along and try to keep our classes going.

Okay, so here's the incident that happened last Wednesday. We were in class (that would be me and 18 convicted felons in a room made of cinder blocks with only 1 exit) when all the power went out. No backup generators, no natural light. Prisons have a minimal number of windows, and there are NONE in any of our classrooms. Luckily, I was sitting at my desk, so I had my flashlight out in seconds. Of course, you just sit tight for a few seconds to see if the power comes back on. When I say the lights are out, I mean it's TOTALLY dark, you know, the you-can't-see-your-hand-infront-of-your-face kind of dark.

After about 5 minutes, it seems obvious this is a serious blackout, so an officer shows up and officially sends everybody back to the dorms. Once in the dorms, residents have to lie on their beds for the duration of the power outage because it's the easiest way to keep track of them. You can't let too many of them have free reign in an open area during a blackout, you see.

The majority of officers report to the dorms to make sure everybody is "racked-up" and not getting into mischief. Everyone else just kind of gravitates to the central hallway where there is a bit of light coming from the doors at either end of the central hall. So, while we're mingling there (Ms. Tayk happens to be there with us), out of the Coordinator's office comes BIG Black Dude, who seems to have slipped through the "rack-up" order. BIG Black Dude realizes he's in the wrong place and could face consequences for not being in the dorm. He considers, out loud, whether he should stay with us or make his way down the dark hallway, unescorted, to his dorm.

Now here's the precious part. Ms. Tayk, in her irreverent grating voice, says (nice and loud) to BIG Black Dude, "What do you care? If you stand still, they won't know you're here."

So, now we have not only total dark, but awkward total silence! Almost as if we had rehearsed it, everyone else just walks away, leaving Ms. Tayk there to explain to BIG Black Dude how that was really just a joke, and you're not offended are you? Because you know I was just being funny, and oh, sometimes I'm so dumb, and I say dumb things, but really........I'm.....just......being.......funny........

And her voice trails off as I reach my pitch-black classroom, shaking my head, and muttering, "I don't believe she just said that!"