The force is strong with this one

The prison work camp likes to keep the inmates happy by giving away free shit from time to time.

It starts with Inmate of the Quarter, a morale-building exercise in suck-assery that gets the winner free stuff from joints like Marshall's (because the wardens can't have us inmates dressing like south Phoenix winos), Fry's grocery stores (because the wardens are tired of the inmates stealing their caviar and lobster sandwiches from the lunchroom fridge) and the T&A Liquor Store (because the wardens know a 'happy' inmate is a drunk, oversexed inmate, and that Liquor Store just so happens to have the widest selection of 'exotic' reading material this side of the Rio Grande).

The cell blocks here split up and root for their biggest bulls knowing full well there are a few generous sorts who may share a dozen donuts - that's like currency here - with the rest of the block. We're worse than carrion birds around here, just waiting for whatever scraps the premiere suck ass of the quarter will toss to the rest of us misbehaving inmates, and then we spring on 'em like ants on a scorpion. We're a bunch of thugs, if you win cash someone will roll you in the parking lot, kick you in the jumblies and take every last penny (it's a prison work camp, we don't have much more than a few pennies to begin with).

But the gift card bounty is just a Band-aid on a sawed-off limb when compared to the days when the Warden Supremo puts sports tickets up for raffle. Us inmates become Dumpster-diving hobos behind a greasy spoon diner off the Interstate (the kind of joint that's populated by a 68-year-old waitress named Flo and a cook who's cigarette ash is a shade shorter than his fingernails). We resort to scribbling our X on odd-stock paper so it stands out in a bowl of notebook paper from other inmates and sit there in our cells ticking of the seconds until Warden Supremo finally pulls the name.

That magical moment came my way last week.

It was like an episode of the "Price is Right," he said my name and screamed like a pregnant housewife about to give Bob Barker a bit of oral pleasure on TV. Of course, in his infinite wisdom, the leader of Sun City's largest information distributor forgot the tickets on his desk, so he departed the stage to retrieve my prize - four tickets to the Phoenix Coyotes. Hockey for those of you who may be asking "What the hell sport do they play?" And for those of you who may never have heard of hockey - with the shitty TV package the sport secured two years ago, I wouldn't be surprised - it's a sport that's played with sticks, a puck and on ice. Phoenix ... ice ... I know, I've heard the jokes before, so can it. Seriously, this is the logic of a governing body based in the United States that lords over a sport that was created in Canada. So, of course, we stole nearly all of its teams and have ruined the damn. Ah, but that's a topic for another day.

Not more than two minutes after running around the cell block proclaiming my wonderful greatness at putting my X down on a scrap of paper and tossing it into a bowl so it could be pulled out a few hours later, one lesser warden - Warden lite, if you will - comes wandering around the wall with a ad sales slug in tow.

"You going to use those hockey tickets?" He asks. The question takes me aback. I'll give out my response, and parenthetically give you the response I thought about later, in the prison work camp bathroom where we all know I do my best thinking.

"Uh, yeah, I was thinking of taking Wife. She loves the fights." (No, I just threw in my wadded up scrap of toilet paper with my name on it for shits and giggles, smart guy. No wonder you're in charge of the ex-cons in the press room.)

Then the sales lackey pops out from behind him like a house elf from Harry Potter. At first, she spooked me because I thought the Prison Guard may have just pooped her out when I wasn't looking - she's border-line midget, so it's not out of the question - then realized, no she was just tagging along because he was her mouthpiece in this transaction. He didn't want the tickets, she did.

She looks at me, stares me down like I'm chum to her sharklike sales instincts, and then says, "Are you really going to use the tickets? I really want them. Do you really think you'll use the tickets?"

I looked into the House Elf's eyes and I was lost in a sea of surrealism. Was she really asking me for the tickets I fairly won? My tickets, now. What the hell? No, I tell myself, I want to go. It will be a nice date night for Wife and I (hockey date nights = Wife filled with adrenaline thanks to a half dozen hockey fights). But I'm so taken aback by the House Elf's balls - she's in ad sales, remember, so, yeah, she has some gonads - I wasn't sure what to say. This kind of situation isn't in the normal, raffle-winning script.

"Yeah," I say more confused than when Wife actually said yes when I asked her to marry me, "I want to go."(Look here you little imp, I'm taking the little lady out that night for a little ice boxing, some raw oysters and a whole lot of liquor. Then, if I'm lucky, we're going to do some ice dancing, if you know what I mean.)

"Really?" And an odd feeling came over me, like I was one of the guards at Jabba the Hut's layer that Luke Skywalker uses his Jedi mind trick on ("You will dress Princess Leia up in a chain link bikini and parade her around like a Jedi dominatrix.")

That's when I figured out, dammit, she is a Jedi, too. But just as I was going to call the Elf on her true persona, the Warden Supremo came back with my loot.

"Oh, these tickets say Oct. 22." Fine by me, I thought, I'm still going with Wife. I can wait a month for some hockey and hockey fight sex. Then I looked at the Elf who appeared heartbroken. But I was sure she'd use her Jedi powers to either get the Warden to buy her new tickets or have him switch those tickets outs for a more acceptable game. However, my face must have registered more confusion, so the Warden piped up, "No, I'm just kidding."

Then he turns to me with his big, Fred Flintstone head and asks whether I'd mind sitting separate from the other seat. "Do you plan on going with someone? And if so, do you like that person?"

To say his question, and straight face, stumped me more than a legless distance runner was an understatement. I didn't know how to take him. Between the Elf, the Prison Guard Mouthpiece and Warden Supremo-turned-George Carlin here it was all too surreal. Nothing was making sense. Two folks were guilting me into giving away tickets I rightfully won, and the giver was turning the other end of my head around with his straight-faced jokes.

"Uhm, yeah, I'm taking Wife. It'll be a date night." (Listen, when I want to watch bad comedy I'll check out your sex life, dude.)

He laughs and then nudges my prison guard, "I can't believe it, he thinks I'm serious."

"Oh, you don't want to go," the Elf said, looking me in the eyes again. It took me sec to fight off her Jedi powers before I shook my head no. "Give me the tickets."

"Well, there's actually four tickets here, what should I do with the other two?" said the Warden Supremo.

"Give them to me," said the Elf Jedi. However, the Warden Supremo didn't adhere to her mind games and instead slapped all four in my paws.

"Do what you want with them, dude."

And without knowing why, I give two tickets to the pushy, rude Jedi Sales Elf. I told those around me that they obviously meant something to her if she came over here and begged, pleaded and damn near sucked her way to these tickets.

My money was on the fact that her husband or boyfriend was a big Coyotes fan and she knew how good these seats were (seven rows off the ice, close enough to see hockey player snot on the Plexiglas when the players plastered each other up against glass - I can't even blow security guards well enough to get into those seats). But to my relief, she took her son and to see his smile as we watched two players swing away on each other's domes at center ice told me all I needed to know. It really did mean something to her, and obviously her son. I couldn't begrudge her of that, but she's still a Jedi Sales Elf, and if she ever wins anything at the Camp she better be ready to split her loot with thise Italian imp.