Gun Rights, Mandated, M, Smells Like Creepy

A few quick hitting ideas for this post.

First up, gun rights.  I mentioned in a previous post that I bought my first handgun.  An ATI FX 45 1911.  It's a recreation of the M1911 A1, and it's a BLAST to shoot.

I've wanted to have a handgun for awhile now but was afraid that I'd missed my opportunity.  You see, I have no desire to have a gun all by myself.  My buddy who had several guns moved down to Texas.  He was the one I was going to share this hobby with.

Thankfully my brother R got his job and recently picked up his dream gun... a Kimber 1911.  His is a beautiful gun with some very nice parts.  It's not a custom gun but a custom 1911 can go for anywhere from $2500 and up.  His was 'only' about $1200.  Mine, by comparison, goes for about $500 brand new.  I paid $300 for it.

Now I really like guns.  They're fun as all get out to shoot and it's something that you can really sink your teeth into.   Being able to hit a target isn't exactly hard.  Being able to do so with both accuracy and preciseness IS difficult.  And doing so consistently requires not only the right equipment but the right skill and muscle memory.


R's idea of shooting is both for fun and for bear protection.  We won't go into why a 1911 show piece isn't the best choice for bear defense... that was his decision.  But for 'practice' all he wants to do is hit a paper target at around 100 feet.  If he can do that he can put enough rounds into most bears to discourage them from continuing on and eating him.

So I was a little disappointed when we went out to a friends of his to shoot.  They stapled a paper target to a piece of wood, staked it into the ground down a hill (with a slight incline behind it) and started taking turns shooting it.

There were four of us shooting that day.  My brother R, his friend R and R's brother R.  Those initials probably won't work so we'll say; My brother R, his friend G, and G's brother N.  The most polite way to talk about G and N is to say they are 'rural'.  A more direct way is to call them hicks.  Now both of these guys are good people.  They're not mean spirited and they're not criminals.  But both are fairly racist and both believe that shooting a gun and hitting a three foot piece of paper at 100 feet is both skillful and fun.

I'm a fan of hitting paper too... but at most I want to put about 20 rounds into each sheet.  That way you can see where you are hitting and work at becoming more accurate.

In short, accuracy is hitting what you are aiming at.  Precise is hitting a smaller area.  If we're aiming at the bulls eye, then none of us were either accurate nor precise.  The way the shooting would work is one person would step up and unload a clip.  Then the next person would step up and do the same.  Then the next... on and on until we've shot about 50 rounds at the target.  Only then would we walk down and look at the target.

Well... there are 50 holes in the damned thing.  How the hell can we tell how accurate we are?  R and I are shooting practically the same gun so our bullet holes look exactly the same.  And we'd all take turns shooting each other's guns.  It was more or less put a gun in a hand, pull the trigger several times, yell 'YEE HAW' and then repeat.   We weren't really target shooting... we were just shooting.

It WAS fun... but not really helpful.  Of course, G and N have both been shooting for a long LONG time and aren't really interested in getting more accurate or precise.  If they can hit the target (which they can) they're happy.  So I probably won't be shooting with them all that much.  At least not with any goal of getting better at shooting for finding out what I need to improve my gun.

I'll eventually convince R to join a gun club or something with me so we can get access to an indoor range.  That way we can set up targets and work on our skill.

Now something that I should put out there is that my opinion on 'Gun Rights' is variable.  There are times where I feel that anybody should be able to own any gun they want and shoot it however they want.  If they do so unsafely or in the use of a crime, then they should be punished... but their idiocy shouldn't prevent me from owning a gun and firing it safely.  There are also times where I wish we'd just get rid of the damned 2nd amendment and ban all guns from private ownership and use.  There is just far to much gun violence here in America.

Those two stances are what I call my 'Merica stance and my America stance.  And I swear, the more I come in contact with gun owners, the more I side toward the America side.  Fuck 'Merica.  It's not so much that they believe in their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, it's that they believe that any infringement upon their interpretation is sacrilege and needs to be attacked.

They love the part of the 2nd Amendment that reads:  "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  But they always seem to forget that the words "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." precedes it.  They fight regulation saying that it infringes their rights when the damned word 'REGULATED' is IN the damned amendment!!!!

For Fuck's Sake!

The most stupid reason I hear from this group is that regulations are bad because only criminals will be free of the regulations while everybody else will be hurt by them.  Umm... what? That's like saying speed limits are bad because only criminals can then drive any speed they want.  But if you don't have the speed limit, then everybody can drive any speed they want... more often than not, dangerously.  The gun version of this is a background check... everybody should be able to pass a background check to make sure they're able to own a gun.  But imposing that rule for all gun sales infringes upon their right to own guns.  It really doesn't.  It just ensures that only those that CAN pass a gun can legally own one.  Of course criminals can always get guns (there are between 270 and 310 MILLION guns in America as of 2013!).  But going around the regulation is what makes them a criminal... if we don't have the regulation they they aren't criminals!

As a new gun owner, I use my good old friend 'The Interwebs' to get information.  I want to find out how to properly hold a gun, load a gun, clean a gun, make a gun more accurate and precise, what rounds to get for a gun, what the difference in rounds equates too..... all manner of information.  The problem is that to get to this information I have to wade deeply into 'Merica territory   I recently found a forum called 1911 addicts.  Upon first glance they seemed to be a good bunch of people with a lot of good information.

Yesterday I went there just to gleam some information and found a new thread.  This thread was a celebration of a death.  It seems that the wife of Jim Brady passed away.  If that name doesn't ring a bell, Jim Brady was the press secretary to President Reagan that was shot and permanently injured.  The 'Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act' was named after him and is the basis of passing a background check before purchasing a handgun.  Jim Brady died last year and evidently his wife Sarah died more recently.

These cold hearted bastards were CELEBRATING her death.  They went into a dream scenario where they were talking about how they'd celebrate when Hillary Clinton, Barbara Feinstein, or any other democrat that has talked about gun regulations will die.

Let me put this on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum.  Wayne LaPierre is the current head of the NRA.  I think he is a douche on a major scale.  He lies, he attacks any attempt at gun regulation, and in my opinion he is simply put a bad person.  I won't exactly be sad when he dies, but I most certainly won't celebrate his death.  I won't think his death is a net gain for anybody.  On the political side, I won't be sad when George W Bush dies... I hated him as president.  I mean EVERYTHING about his presidency.  But I still won't celebrate it.  I didn't celebrate when president Nixon died and he's just about as bad of a president as we can expect to ever have.

But that's what 'Merica is all about.  Love what you Love.  Hate what you Hate.  Do both with a passion so hot that it could start a forrest fire.  Oh, and Hate those who disagree with you.  In fact, Hate them more than what you Hate.

I love that I own a gun now... and I hate the people that it's grouping me with.

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So we're down a few nurses at work again.  Our most recent nurse to leave was one of the night nurses.  They work from 10pm until 6am.   I won't say it's easier or harder than working on my own 2nd shift or even 1st shift... it's just different.  For the longest time we've only had two night nurses.  With two days off each week for both of them that means that there were four days a week that there was only one nurse to cover the entire prison.  That also meas that if that night nurse calls in or asks for that night off, someone else has to work that shift.

With the hiring of the third night nurse that became a rare situation.  They set up their schedule so that there were always two nurses on for the night shift.  If one couldn't work or called in... well critical staffing only requires one nurse so no one (namely me) would be mandated to work overnight.

Anywho... she moved on to greener pastures so we're back down to two night nurses.  One of which took a week off.  She's earned that week off and I'd never get angry for her taking that time.  But it meant that two times in the last week, they've had to ask people to work overnight.   This past Saturday was a tense time.... there was no one to cover the night shift.  They'd known it was coming and had asked over and over for someone to voluntarily cover it.  No one volunteered.  As I was working, that meant that I'd have a good chance to get mandated.  I'd have to work my normal shift Saturday, work overnight, and then come back in for my normal shift on Sunday.

Ouch.  That's happened to me before.

Thankfully I've now been at the Prison for almost two years.  I'm not the lowest man on the totem pole.  Sadly the nurse that ended up getting mandated didn't look too closely at the situation.  Technically she has more experience than me.  She worked at the prison for close to three years.... several years ago.  She left in a way that didn't save her seniority.  So when she hired back in she started over at the bottom.  She's only been back for like 7 months and for the first 6 months they won't mandate you unless they have absolutely no other option.

So she didn't expect to get mandated.  I talked to her on my way out (as I hadn't been called I knew that she had been mandated... I was the next rung up the mandation ladder!) and she was understandably upset.  Thankfully she's an understanding person.  I'm sure she saw the situation as unfairly as I did... but also realized it IS what it IS.  Thankfully the scheduling supervisor worked her magic and got one of the morning nurses to accept being 'mandated' in 4 hours early.  That means the 2nd shift nurse would only have to work an extra 4 hours and then get to go home.  It also means that the morning nurse got to take her 'being mandated' for a four hour shift.

That may sound odd.... taking her 'being mandated' but the system works like this;  when a position is open they are required to start calling the staff at the top of the seniority list and offer them the position.  If that person doesn't want it (and really... who would want a Saturday Night at the prison!?) then they move on to the next person with the most experience.  That works it's way down until they reach the least experienced person.... and that person, if they don't choose to work, get's mandated to come in and cover the shift.  At that point they are taken off the mandated list until every other nurse has been mandated.

It's my understanding that the mandated list hasn't ever worked it's way up to the top of the seniority list as it's re-set every quarter.  This qurter started on April 1st.  And at this point (April 6th) everybody below me has been mandated.   That means if another spot opens up and no one wants it... I'm IT.

But at least for this schedule (we're scheduled out six weeks in advance), I shouldn't be mandated overnight.  The supervisors seemed to all agree that always having two nurses on for midnight's is a good thing.  So while the two night nurses cover 3 nights a week with two nurses, the supervisors have offered up the other 4 nights as voluntary overtime.  And all that overtime has been accepted.  The only way I would get mandated to cover an overnight shift is if TWO nurses call in the same night.

Whew!

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So we've got a new employee at the prison.  Her position is the Health Information Manager, or HIM for short.  I guess her job is to oversee the electronic documentation of the prisones.  That means she oversees some of the charting that the RNs do.

Our previous HIM was... well in my opinion she was useless.  I'm sure she did her job well enough but where it overlapped with my job she just didn't do well.  Several times over the past couple years she's send me (and other RNs) emails about how we would need to chart certain things.  Invariably this would make our job more difficult and time consuming.   And invariably I while the other RNs would complain about the extra work that we 'needed' to do I would go to the nursing supervisor (she also supervises the HIM) and she how SHE wanted us to chart.   It always fell the same way... she'd go talk to the HIM and then we'd get an email from the HIM saying to never mind and continue charting the way we've always been.

The previous HIM didn't like me.

Now I'm not one for shirking responsibilities.  If it something that needs to be done and falls within my job description, then I'm all about bearing down and getting it done.  But she was shoving HER job onto us.  Or at least making  us do extra work so that she would have to do less work.  I'm not about shirking  my responsibilities, but I'm also not about other people not shirking THEIR responsibility.  Sure, I'd love for other people to do the tedious parts of my job.  I'd love for someone to follow me around and do all of my charting... but oddly enough the State doesn't hire a person for that.  Therefore it's unreasonable for me to expect someone else to do it and even more unreasonable for me to tell someone else to do it... and that's what she was doing.

So this new hire... let's call her M... I think she may be interested in me.

Understand... I have almost no experience with this.  No women has ever thrown them self at me or even shown me much interest at all.  So I might be completely mis-reading this.  But... I don't know.

I first saw her one day and was introduced as a passing thing.  More or less as I was heading in back (where her desk is) to get an inmate's chart one of the other secretaries (honest to god, they're called health secretaries!) stopped me and said "C this is M our new HIM.  M, this is C one of our RNs".  I said hello, shook her hand, and promptly went back to work.  I put enough stock into the introduction that I promptly forgot her name.

A few days later we had a nurses meeting.  Technically it's a health team meeting as the doctors, dietitian, dentist, dental hygienists, and health secretaries are all there too.  But as there are 21 RNs and 10 LPNs, I just call it a Nurses meeting.  Anyway I have a habit of showing up early to these things.  I got there just as the HUM (that's Health Unit Manager... the boss lady) did and helped her set up the tables and chairs.  Once everything was setup, I took my seat.  Front table, one of the middle chairs.

After I sat down I started looking over the handouts as it was about some changes in our charting.  While I was reading away, M walked over  and asked if she could sit next to me.  I was really concentrating on the hand out and simply looked up, smiled and said sure before turning my attention back to the handout.  Once I finished I set it aside and looked around.  The room was empty besides me and M.  The HUM had even stepped out.

Understand there is room for about 40 people in this room.  And she sat next to me.  It's like taking a piss at a long empty line of urinals and having the next guy walk up and take the urinal next to you.  Strange.  I didn't pay it to much mind other than mentally noting it as strange.  I figured she was like me and a little OCD where she liked to sit... front table, one of the middle chairs (there are 4 chairs per table).

We chatted a bit but about nothing.  How long had I been at the prison, how did I like it, what these meetings were like.... stuff like that.  Again, I paid it no mind whatsoever... just two new co-workers chatting.

Later that week I ended up back in her area again.  Our copier/fax/document-server is located back there and I had to print off a lot of forms (I swear to god how hard is it to print these things off?  I think I'm the only one that does it!).  While waiting for the machine to do it's thing she walked up behind me.  I stepped aside to give her access, ready to hit cancel on my print job so that she could do her work.  But instead of going to the machine she chatted with me.  Again, I paid it no mind even when she didn't go for the machine.  I figured  she was just being polite and letting me finish my task before she jumped in.

Then she laughed.

It was there that I noticed two things.   First.... M is attractive.  Yeah, I'm kind of a dunce when it comes to seeing people as attractive.  I just don't pay it attention to it.  I'm not saying she's destined to be a model or anything, but she's easily the most attractive person working in our area.  I'd guess she's about 5 foot 5, has long thick dark brown hair pulled back in a pony tail, has a darker complexion (think like a classic Italian complexion... no she's not Italian).  I'm terrible at guessing weights but she's fit.  Not thn, not fat... just fit.  She has a very pretty face and wears glasses that gives her an intelligent air about her.  She has a beautiful full face smile.  I mention that because in hindsight... she's always smiling at me.  She's around my age.  I'd put her in her late 30s to mid 40s.

The second thing I noticed.... not many people laugh at my jokes.  I joke quite a lot at work, but it's in that goofy way that makes somebody smirk and give a chuckle.  Hardly ever do I inspire a full throated laugh.  I don't even remember what I said... I wasn't trying to make a joke or trying to impress her, I was just being me.  Probably giving a funny story.  And it's not like I stumbled upon comedy gold by accident.  We weren't alone at the machine... S, S, my supervisor J, and the HUM were all there chatting.  Everybody, if I'm remembering it correctly, chuckled.  Except for M... she laughed.  Not only laughed, but reached out and gave my arm a playful slap before turning around and returning to her desk.  Her desk is all the way across the room.

Now again... I'm bad at reading this.  I've only rarely been out 'on the prowl' and so far as I've know Ive never had a woman prowl for me.   There's of course innocent explanations for all of this.  Maybe she just likes to sit in the front of a meeting.  Maybe she just didn't want to be rude and sit 'away' from the only other person there.  Maybe she needed the machine and walked over to it with every intention of using it.  Maybe she didn't use it to be polite and not horde in on my usage.  Maybe she laughs easily.

It just doesn't feel that way.  Since then I've noticed her more.. she really is attractive... I've noticed that she doesn't smile at everyone.  She always smiles at me.  Shes attractive enough that I'd consider her out of my league.  And I'm really not anybody's version of attractive myself.  I'm no catch at my best, and trust me; wearing scrubs is not me at my best.

There's only a small handful of people at work that know I live 'with my mother'.  I don't hide the fact, but I don't exactly advertise it either.  I highly doubt that even if she were asking about me that it would have come up.  So what could she know about me?  What have I said, and would would have other people she's likely to talk to tell her about me?  That I'm a nurse (duh).  That I've been working at the prison for a couple years.  That I'm pleasant (there are plenty of mean people at the prison so that would come up).  That I drive a new car?  I don't really know of anything else that people know about me.  The car only comes up because I was REALLY excited when I got it and told just about everybody that it was the first brand new car that I'd ever purchased.

I don't have low self esteem... but I don't see how someone would be interested in me.  At least not on a first glance, appearance type scale.  I'm the type of guy that somebody could love depsite my physical flaws.  So as she doesn't really 'know' me I can't see how she'd be attracted by me.

I'll just have to see how this goes.

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That leads me to something else that M did.  She said, at the nurses meeting, that I smelled nice.  I don't add that to the list above because I get that a lot.  Disturbingly a lot.

I look at how someone smells in one of three categories.  1) They smell bad.  They need to shower and get the stink off of them.  That can be from hard work, bad hygiene, or simply bad body odor.  Either way, it's bad and it should be fixed.  Most of the people that live at the prison fits into this category.  2) They don't smell bad.  They smell like soap, a mild pleasant body odor, or a mild cologne/perfume/deodorant.  Most of the people that work at the prison (autumn through spring) fit into this category.  During the summer its all about the sweat.  3) They smell good.  This takes effort and is most often an attempt to impress.  Larger amounts of cologne/perfume are the general ways to get this category.  Some of the people visiting the prison fall into this category.... most go overboard and smell like a perfume stand.  But as they're visiting a husband/boyfriend I'm sure they're tarting it up as best they can.

I've had the same basic plan for my scent since I was in JR High School and learned that men stink if they aren't clean (yes, I thought of myself as a man back then.  Sue me).  Get clean.  I use Irish Spring soap because it has a light pleasant scent that wears off fairly quickly leaving a simply 'soap' scent if anything at all.  I use an antiperspirant/deodorant.  You see, I swat.  Not a lot... but it's there.  I sweat when I'm nervous, I sweat when I'm anxious, I sweat when I'm anywhere near warm (it doesn't have to be 'hot'), I sweat when I'm happy... I just sweat all the fucking time. Mostly in the pits and we all know that the pits often stink.  So my antiperspirant/deodorant has a strong scent that gets stronger when I sweat.  It does a good job of covering up the smell.   I use a few sprays of cologne.  Coty Musk.  It's cheap, readily available, and while it smells strong upon applying it fades fairly quickly leaving a nice pleasant but fairly weak scent.  Other 'beauty' products obviously add their bits to my overall scent.  Hair paste, shaving soap, shaving bar, toothpaste, breath mints.... but mainly I should smell only mildly of soap, antiperspirant/deodorant, and cologne.

So when I get told that I smell good, I'm a little taken aback.   I'm NOT trying to smell good.  I'm simply trying to avoid smelling bad.  I have no desire to smell good and wouldn't know what to do (other than trying out stronger colognes) if I did want to smell good.  At all of my previous jobs and classes I've been told that I smell good a grand total of once.  It was during nursing school and we had to do a physical assessment on a classmate.  My partner had to get very close during our assessment.  As did everybody.  The point beyond the assessment itself was to get us used to invading other people's personal space.  It's the job of a Nurse to get right up in there and you can't be shy about it.  Now in social situations, I've had people compliment me before.  But that was almost always just as we were meeting up... before the cologne had worn off.

At this job?  I've had at least 14 people tell me that I smell good.  That's 14 co-workers.  Nurses and correctional officers alike.  All female (guy's just do't tell each other that they smell good).  Wait... yea, one of the male nurses told me I smell good but that was after another female nurse mentioned it.  He was piling on for the humor value.  It worked; we all laughed.  I unfortunatly have also had several inmates tell me that I smell good.  That is way WAY creepy but I would bet that's their intention.  Trying to put other people off their game is like a full time job for many inmates.  My reaction to them is always just 'thanks' and then move on to what I was doing.  If they smell bad I'll sometimes turn it around and mention that having good hygeine habits can give them the same result.

But why the hell does my smell get notice and complimented this much by this many people?  It's NOT attraction as some of these nurses/officers are in their 60s... at least I hope it's not attraction (shiver).

The only sane thing I can think of is that between all the stink from the prisoners, and all the 'tarted up' over perfumed women visiting them, that they feel it very nice that I smell 'good' and not 'bad'.

It's still just creepy.