GAME-JACKED!!
(Disclaimer: I respect the Muslim faith a great deal and poke fun only at the actions of these individuals. No offense is intended.)
The cold weather is here and with it comes change. Activities shift from participating in sports to watching them on TV, the library gets busier and guys do anything to avoid boredom. The prison tries to keep us occupied but really there isn’t much to offer. There is Volleyball and Dodge-ball leagues for those who can’t sit still, but for most of us those types of things lost fashion about 20 years ago.
Our passive recreation area gets crowded with guys playing pool, fooz-ball or ping-pong. While the musically inclined jam in the music rooms on guitars, pianos and drums. A small group of us have laid claim to an ancillary room filled with long picnic tables. Some play card games like Bridge or Euchar while others content themselves with games like Scrabble or Chess. Then there are the geeks and their role playing games.
All geeks, in the world and in prison, are not created equal. There is a hierarchy. Here it is basically a three tiered system: Alpha, Beta and Omega. The bottom tier is the Omega nerd’s domain. These are the stereotypical nerds with bad hygiene, poor social skills and no boundary between the real world and the game world. Omega nerds place the game above all things, even food. For these guys a woman’s body is as mythical as the land of Mordor – something read about (often obsessively) and glimpsed in photographs or paintings. They range in age from 20 to 70 (yes, seriously). Most dream of someday achieving a higher tier but never will.
Beta nerds are the geeks who can function in the real world but prefer to escape as much as possible into fantasy. They’ll work and socialize all day then spend every second of free-time in the game, be it electronic or tabletop. They have a few non-geek friends and may even have had sex with a real woman at some point in their lives. In prison they work mostly in facilities where they tinker with plumbing, electricity and HVAC systems. For the most part they are nice guys, just sinfully boring. Beta’s have no interest in climbing the ladder of geekdom since it might eat into their gaming time.
At the top are the Alpha geeks. This is where I live. We are the “cool” geeks who can talk to women, understand social conventions and have lots of non-geek friends and acquaintances. We are managers and people lovers. Our interests are varied, but we understand and enjoy the geek world and try to incorporate it, appropriately, into non-geek things. Intelligent jocks, computer chicks and technophiles fit in here nicely. While the other geeks play Dungeons and Dragons almost exclusively, we focus on darker and more modern games like Battletech, World of Darkness and GURPS. We will always choose sex, booze and rock and roll over a game. But we play often because it’s fun and makes us happy.
The other night, though, we met our match. We had just sat down and were setting up our game when two Kufi wearing black men walked into the room. The Omega geeks fell silent and I’m pretty sure a few pooped themselves.
“You all need to leave,” the biggest guy said.
The Omega geeks proceeded to run for their lives.
We just sat back and laughed.
“You guys too,” they said turning to us.
“For what?” My buddy Jacob asked.
“We got kicked out of our room for some Rec class and they told us to come in here,” they explained.
“And?” Jacob asked. By now the Beta geeks have used their powers of blandness to slip unseen out the door.
“We have a religious thing tonight,” they tell us.
“So go to the Chapel,” Jacob suggests.
“It’s booked.”
Jacob looks around the room, which seats about 50 and is totally empty except for the five of us and two of them. “I think we can all fit in here,” Jacob tells them.
At this point, one of the Recreation C.O.’s walked into the room.
“Do we really have to leave?” we asked her.
“Yeah guys, sorry,” she nodded. “I promised the Muslim Crochet Class this room tonight.
All the Alpha geeks looked at each other trying not to laugh.
“The Muslim Crochet Class?” Jacob said.
“Yeah, it’s just for tonight. So if you guys can scoot I’d really appreciate it,” she told us.
“Of course, Of course, Jacob said. “We wouldn’t want to get in the way of Holy Crochet.”
So we left, conquered by a group of Muslim men learning how to crochet, I bet Isis is so proud knowing that even in prison the Muslim man can push aside the white infidel to make their quilts in peace.
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