This past Friday, the prison at which my esteemed father, Qadgop the Mercotan, dispenses his medical wisdom had its annual tour day. Prison employees can bring in a few selected and prescreened friends or family members and lead them around, and this year I got to go! Oh, rapture!
Touring a max security prison brings up all sorts of thorny issues involving human rights, drug policy, the nature of the individual and the self, race relations, education, religion, and many others.
But I’m not going to talk about those. I’m going to tell a funny Qadgop story.
The Qad-group, along with some other prison tourists, were led into the common area of one of the cell blocks. The prisoners were all in their cells, which encircle the common area on two floors. As maximum security prisoners don’t tend to get out much, our visit was a thing of special interest, and most of them were at the little windows in their doors peering out at us. There were the usual hoots and hollers associated with seeing OMG WOMEN!!! … but one voice quickly began to ring out over the others.
“Mercotan!”
(more hooting and similar)
“MERCOTAN!”
(hoots)
“MERCOTAAAAAAAAAN!”
We all started snickering, trying not to make it obvious, and retreated to the safety of the small kitchen area for an instructive speech on prison food. A few minutes later, when we re-entered their field of view to leave the cell block, most of the prisoners seemed to have quieted down a bit. Qadgop’s fan, however, retained all of his former enthusiasm.
“MERCOTAAAAAAAAAN!”
“MERCOTAAAAAAAAAN!”
“MMMMMMMEEEEEERRRRRCOOOOOOOTAAAAAAAAAN!”
The others were silent, possibly in awe. Finally, He Of Great Lung Capacity was able to impart to Qadgop his vitally important message.
“Mercotan!
…
…
…Let us out, man!”
As we were let out, and as I tried not to fall over laughing, I heard Qadgop muttering, “Someone’s getting his meds adjusted.”
