SILLY STORIES OF THE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT CREATURES I ENCOUNTERED IN PRISON
My whole life I have had all kinds of pets. Dogs, cats, ferrets, fish, hamsters, guinea pigs, birds, an iguana, a cow, a miniature donkey, and horses. I love animals and prison didn’t change my desire to be near animals, so I got creative.
Let me give a little history just to illustrate my obsession with animals. For about twelve years of my life the only place I would even consider as home was on my horse’s back. I would spend my entire day during the summer and every day after school grooming, riding, and telling them all my thoughts and dreams. They were my giant therapists that didn’t disagree or recommend change, they were perfect.
Then along came my Norburt. He was a large black mastiff, and he was a terrorist. I adopted him as “Darth Vader” and he came with a warning that he did not do well with small animals. I renamed him and believed we could work through his issues. He killed everything and he did it right in front of me, leaving me to get rid of the little bodies because I did not want him to get in trouble. He was a handful, but as much as he stressed me out, I loved that dog unconditionally.
There are many animals along the way and looking back, I realize my pets were my emotional support animals, so coming to prison without my furry guidance counselors made it that much harder. I do not have dogs or horses, but I just cannot help my fascination that makes me gravitate to all kinds of critters. So, let me tell you some of my silly stories about my emotional support creatures along this journey of my incarceration.
OBESE BEE
After three years of pretrial and dreading the inevitable that I was headed to prison, I turned myself in after taking my plea and spent over a year in federal holding while I waited to be sentenced. Federal holding is a rough place and you only get about one hour a day outside, weather permitting. I missed my family and my animals tremendously and this one hour a day was about the only time I could truly distract myself. It was summertime when I got there, and I spent a lot of my hour outside playing sand volleyball. I started noticing this gigantic bee that would hang out next to the volleyball court. While I was grieving and missing my pets, I found myself becoming obsessed with this little creature. It was huge and it would fly from flower (weed) to flower (weed turned flower in my mind} testing the weight limit of each one because it was HUGE.
I realize there were probably more than one of these bees, but in my mind it was the same one, and I loved it. Deep down, I think it may have loved me too because it was always there just smashing those flowers wherever I was. When I was inside, I thought about the obese bee, I wondered what it was doing.
I took a creative writing class while I was in federal holding and started to write short stories about my new muse. I shared one with the class and it was a hit. It was really funny, and my obese bee became a bit famous. When we would go out, everyone would start looking for the bee and would announce when they saw him. This is around the time I started realizing there was more than one… I spent two summers there, and I grew more and more fond of the bees. I never paid much attention to bees before, but now, I still find myself thinking about my emotional support bee, and I wonder what he is doing even today.
THE SKUNK OR WHAT I THOUGHT WAS A DRUNK PUPPY
When I came to this federal prison camp, I was in love with the freedom that came with it. After being cooped up in a federal holding for over a year, I took every opportunity to be outside and would not come in until the last moment I could stay out. After the 5 am count clears, we can go out, and I did. I would head straight to the track for my morning jog. Our track is extremely dark because most of the lights have burned out and it seems no one thinks to replace them. I really do not care if they ever replace them. I prefer the darkness and love looking at the stars and moon.
One morning, I was jogging along, half asleep, admiring the stars and was coming around the back side of the quarter mile track when something off in the distance caught my eye. On the back side of the camp property is a railroad track, and I saw an animal off in the distance. It was extremely dark, so I could not tell what it was, but I am pretty sure my wishful thinking led me to believe it was a dog.
There is no fence, so anything could wander in and I was just sure I was going to get to pet a dog. I was excited and started jumping up and down clapping my hands yelling “come here puppy, come on, oh come on over here.” You know that kind of talk you use when talking to an animal and sound like a crazy person? Well the creature started coming to me, so I was even more excited and of course no one was around to witness any of this. I noticed that it was not walking in a straight line, it was more darting back and forth, but still headed my way.
So, I thought maybe it was a drunk puppy, because, well, why not. It was still headed my way with me wildly encouraging it along. I thought maybe this dog is senile or something because in the darkness it was becoming more and more obvious it was a little off. I could see the white fur glimmering under the stars from quite a way off. I could not tell what other color it was until it was less than 10 feet from me… I then realized it was black and white, and it was a skunk! It came to me like it was a dog, because this is the kind of strange thing that only happens to me. I stopped clapping and just looked at it and it looked up at me. I said, “Oh look at you! You’re a skunk.” It probably thought “well no kidding lady.” I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “ok well you carry on now,” and it did. Then I just took off in the other direction and I jogged on.
In defense of my sanity, there have been other sightings of this skunk. Just the other day it was outside my coworker’s window early in the morning digging in a hole. I am just saying…
THE BUNNIES
When I first got to this camp, there were a ton of little bunnies all over the place. They were super cute and quite domesticated, everyone loved them. Being on the mowing crew and loving these little bunnies was stressful. There were quite a few keepers of these little creatures, but one lady would sit out on the front porch and guard the bunny holes all day. She knew where every nest was located and made sure everyone stayed away from them. She would mark the holes for us mowers so we could mow around them as safely as possible.
Now with the boys next door at the FCI kept securely behind the fence, we had no bunny keeper to warn us of the nests that popped up daily. Some days mowing and weed eating over there was a disaster. A friend was weed eating and some babies freaked out and ran out of the hole from the noise and vibration. It ran straight out of its hole and directly into the weed eater and got its head cut off. My friend was sobbing and I was crying, it was a mess. At some point we got a little bit tougher, but not much. We just got better at handling the bunny massacre days. It had been a long time since the days that my Norburt had conditioned me to killings like this and being this soft was a problem when there are 200 acres to take care of.
These bunnies were friendly. People would sit on the benches outside feeding them out of the palms of their hands. It was the highlight of a lot of peoples day and extremely entertaining to watch all these felonious ladies fall all over themselves in love with these tiny creatures. Not one person was cruel or did not like them. Then again, it would have not gone over well, and someone was always watching during hours we were out.
Then one day the bunnies mysteriously started to drop dead. Most seemed to happen rather quickly. While other more dramatic bunnies drug it out for hours while we tried to save them. Like a child playing veterinarian, I had decided they were overheated and dehydrated, yes that made sense. So, we took them ice cubes and water trying to revive them back to their bouncy selves. It did not work, and one by one they all shriveled up and dropped dead. How mysterious huh? Maybe the aliens did it. Whatever happened was highly effective because it has been two years and I have yet to see a bunny survive. They were great while they lasted, and I believe it is safe to say they were emotional support for a lot of these ladies.
THE MUSKRATS CAME TO TOWN/PRISON
Early one morning I went to work, and someone came down to tell me about an exciting muskrat sighting up on the compound. Two muskrats had wandered into the camp and people thought one was a baby. The sun had not come up yet and people were walking back from eating breakfast at the dining hall. The critters were running along the sidewalk freaking people out because they could not see what they were. Hearing this, I knew I had to investigate. So, my friend and I jumped on the golf cart and headed to the compound to find a muskrat. They were long gone by the time I arrived. However, with my strange luck I felt I would encounter them at some point.
Now from my mowing days I knew this property well. We are close to the river and there are large areas dug out for drainage pools all over this land. One of these pools has a huge beaver that lives in it. It often sits on his front porch/drainage pipe, along with its friend, an eagle. I am not kidding. This probably needs to be some sort of children’s book. I just could not make this stuff up if I tried. I started to wonder if this creature they were talking about might have been a beaver baby. If it was, I knew just where it belonged. If not, I had some other great ideas for critter real estate.
That evening, I was in recreation working on a blog when some ladies came running in to get me. I am the weirdo that has no fear and for some reason, people think I know what to do in bizarre situations. Sure enough one of the muskrats had come to visit, I got my wish. This was not a baby. It was dark so I herded it into the light to see what I was dealing with.
I told someone to grab my sweatshirt thinking if I dangled it in front of the creature and it did not attack, well, I might just try and pick it up. It attacked, so I was on to plan b. I dumped out the recycle bin and flipped it on its side and the muskrat ran in, then I quickly set it back up and I had caught myself a muskrat! Then I realized I was in prison and could not just go wandering off in the dark to relocate a critter. So, my friend volunteered to jump on the relocate and release mission and off we went to talk to staff on duty, the poor unsuspecting guard for the night.
I had no idea how this was going to go. I walked in and said “hey, I just caught this muskrat and I was wondering if I could walk over to that drainage pool across the parking lot and release him so he won’t come back.” He looked completely bewildered, looked in the can and asked how this all came about. A few minutes into my very animated story, I could tell he was sorry for asking and told us to go on and get the muskrat relocated.
We headed out to a big drainage pool on the other side of the parking lot from where the beaver lived, because I did not feel they would make good bunkies. As we got closer, the night got a little darker as we were headed away from any kind of light. I started to think maybe releasing a wild animal in pure darkness might not be a smart decision, but I was committed, and this was happening. On the walk out, I remembered this pool had a little fenced area around the drainage pipe that went into it. I can’t say it made sense but that was a pretty common theme and we were limited on options.
I sold myself on this area being a great place for a muskrat to live and proceeded to prepare for the dismount. I told my friend to stand back and laid the can on its side to let the critter move into its new abode. The muskrat came to the edge but couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to live there. I said, “now listen to me muskrat, this is where we depart and it seems like a nice place for you. I’m in prison and I have to go back inside this federal institution to return this federal property you seem to be getting comfortable in.” It just looked up at me. So, I apologized while I picked up the back of the can to give a gentle, encouraging slope. He still was not having it. This had gone on long enough, I dumped it. That thing was really upset about it and chased after me. I didn’t know if it was trying to come with me or bit my ankles. I screamed to my friend, “run for your life” and we did. The muskrat must be cool with its new place because it never came back to camp.
FOR THE BIRDS
I have had birds as pets in my life, but they were not my favorite. They were not snuggly and were not into being petted. They certainly did not comfort me and after prison, I will never have something in a cage again. Now I have become the bird lady, snow white, or Dr. Doolittle, or whatever you would like to call me. I have designated the birds as my emotional support animals, it is all I have so they will have to do. I have a little pair of sparrows that come visit me at work every day. I give them snacks and they hang out. When they want me to open the big door that goes out on the dock they fly behind my desk and hop around like dogs trying to go out. My coworkers look at me like I am nuts when I ask them, “if they want to go out and potty.” Ophelia and Hamlet, yes, I named them, have been hanging out since February. I am pretty sure there is a nest somewhere because even though it is nice they still come in; it might have something to do with the snacks too…
They do not know the difference between important people and regular people. So, when important folks come around, they do not know to stay away and proceed to flutter around anyone and everyone’s heads if they want something. They remind me of what a flying toddler would be like. They don’t know any better, they are needy, and they can fly so they will do just what they want. I used to just shrug my shoulders and attempt to look confused as to why they would possibly be doing such a thing. Now I just come out and let people know they are my emotional support birds and I need them. My coworkers used to be mortified and weirded out by this bizarre relationship I have made with these creatures. Now everyone seems to be on board and appear to be enjoying them. I even catch them feeding them when they think no one is looking and having conversations with them. I guess now they are all our emotional support birds and I am happy to share.
Apparently, the word is out in the animal kingdom that the warehouse is a bird friendly zone. The birds are incredibly tame and are not afraid of humans anymore. When we start the forklifts, they are not in a hurry to move and now there are young ones hopping around our desks begging for food and sometimes seem to just want to visit and chirp at us. A grey dove decided to make a stack of milk crates a maternity ward, made her nest, and laid an egg. Every week the milk crates leave with the milkman, so I tried to move the milk crate somewhere else and leave a trail of bread to relocate her. She was not having it and kept looking in all the crates in the stack where she left the egg. She was stressing me out, so I moved it back and she went to sit on her egg. As the official snow white, I have decided that this stack must stay until the baby is hatched and according to my sources, it should be hatching real soon. We have all become eager bird parents of this baby that is on the way. I named the mamma Bethany and the daddy is Barthelme. They are amazing at co-parenting and switch out frequently, never leaving the egg alone. I will have to write a future blog to update the outcome of this adventure
THE END
In conclusion, all these silly stories and interesting creatures have brought me a lot of joy on this journey. I realize I would not have paid attention or spent time trying to connect with these critters had I not been in prison. I am grateful for these experiences and I look forward to more crazy animal encounters in the future. In this time of the coronavirus I needed a break from the doom and gloom and even more than that , I needed a smile and knew exactly what I needed to write about to bring a little joy.
