A whole lotta pot, but no luck

I've worked at 10 different prison work camps and they've all had very different ways of celebrating their employees.

One computer shop had its annual Christmas party at a bar - the best place to celebrate the Lord Al Pacino's birth - while another flew us out to Cape Cod, got us all knee-knocking, pants-wetting drunk with an open bar before sitting us down in a windowless conference room (re: cave) to blather on about EBITDA, price per shares and the size of the big cheese's cock (he was quite fond of it, we just wanted the bar to open up).

I worked ground maintenance at a private school that would open the baseball field (of course, after they said, "Hey, Mike, take your thumb out of your ass, wrap it around this here weed whacker and clean up the infield before the game today.") to faculty and staff members - we waxed the shit out of the profs but I'm not sure we really won as later we were called to cleanup rolls of soggy toilet paper that mysteriously had found their way onto the profs' lawns and hedges.

Then I come to the Valley of the Frying Sun and I find the head boobs out here like to show appreciation by ... making us work more. That's right, we toil and trouble for eight hours and then get an e-mail that reads: "Hello penniless slaves. Tomorrow, we'll have a potluck. So, cook (re: work on your own, away from work) up your best dish, whether it be chateaubriand, lobster bisque or baked Alaskan salmon in a lemony-butter braise - take heed, slaves, I didn't mention fried chicken or macaroni salad, we only want good stuff from you slack asses - and prepare to enjoy what our office's finest commodity - you - have to offer. Now get cookin' slaves."

And not a minute later a second note follows: "Oh, and the dishes will be judged by our esteemed panel of top blowhards, with the winner receiving free tickets to the Sun City Dinner Theatre. Enjoy denture-smacking old farts as they present 'Jesus Christ Superstar.' I hear the dinner will be pureed beef hearts and cream of corn."

My competitive edge kicks in and I rack my bean for the right dish for this competition. Finally, I break down and access my main brain trust - Wife. She comes up with her signature dish, something that would make that soup stirrer Emeril grab his ankles for - chocolate covered strawberries. In our house, those suckers are currency.

"Honey, will you rub my feet?"

"Yeah, for the last three chocolate-covered strawberries I'll do it."

"Nevermind, you don't rub that good."

So I plead with Wife to make her legalized drug so we can win the tickets - "Hon, these Sun Citians could act Tom Hanks into a paper bag" - and enjoy a date night with our future. And she agrees. Wonders will never cease.

I walk into the prison work camp and start lobbying hard for the vote. I tell them if they vote for my big, red, ripe, chocolate-covered strawberries, all their wildest dreams will come true. It's like I went to the Karl Rove school of campaigning.

"Don't eat the brownies, they're likely packed with turds and bits of corn. Plus, there ain't no 'special ingredient' in them so what the hell good are they? The strawberries on the other hand will get you high. We sprayed them with a gentle hallucinogen that will help you cope with the final four hours of the day. Who wouldn't want that?"

"Don't eat the pie. Think about it, the person who made it isn't exactly known for her cleanliness. I mean, she's been with more men than a urinal, and she pounded out that pie shell with those same hands that were just a few short hours ago wrapped around something else. You could have Salma Hayek serve it to me in her birthday suit and I still wouldn't eat. Now, the strawberries, on the other hand, have been personally inspected by moi, washed in a warm anti-bac, fruit-friendly soap that vaporizes any mighty mite in a 2-foot radius. So you decide."

As we roll through the line of dishes, I continue to plug the 'berries, mentally counting the votes. I work a deal with one co-worker promising to vote for her main dish if she votes for my dessert dish. I bully the pre-pubescent reporters into voting for me. I promise the fellow monkey copy editors that I'll stop pawning off angry senior calls on them if they give me their vote. I basically whore myself to anyone that will listen because, dammit, I want to win and I'm not afraid to stoop lower than junky rat hoping to score a dimebag of H by giving up the rest of my gang to the cops.

With our bellies full of concoctions that would make Julia Childs sit up in her coffin, we stand in the lobby awaiting the Head head boobs announcement.

"The winner of the dessert category is..."

I run through my exceptence speech - don't forget to thank the parental units, and Wife who made it all possible.

"Is pistacchio-flavored, yogurt-dipped cow penis."

I'm beyond demoralized. I go up to the Head head boob and ask for a recount. He asks whether I have work to do, and if not he suggests I grab a bucket of warm, suddsy water and begin scrubbing his sack. I say yeah, I have work to do. Thanks boss. Great potluck.