Games they play in prison

Worked this evening. And as seems to be par for the course with this job of mine, I learned something new. Refresher: I've recently started doing on-call work as a house mom at Homes for the Criminally Insane.

Tonight, I was at a semi-independent living home (aka, Criminally Insane Lite). That means the residents are under considerably fewer restrictions than the other homes where I work. In this case, there is only staff coverage from 3 to 11 p.m. The residents are at various levels of reintegration into the community, and the main purpose of this set up is to help them get on their feet -- start working, volunteering, going to school, what have you -- as they prepare for independent living.

Tonight, however, was all about pinochle. And, according to the nightly staff logs, most evenings lately have been about pinochle.

Three of the five guys who live in the home are seriously into the game. A fourth plays regularly. (The fifth makes derogatory comments about medium- and light-roasted coffees -- "coffee for girls," he says -- but apparently spends most evening up in his room listening to heavy metal.)

Anyway, I don't know shit about pinochle. Or rather, I should say I *didn't* know shit about the game. They taught me. They also said I "picked it up pretty fast for a girl." (Let me assure you, that reads worse than it was intended. These dudes are a bunch of big purring pussycats. Except for the guy with the fixation on coffee. He's ... adversarial.)

So I learned to play, although I'm still confused about the bidding that goes on at the start and exactly how that affects your score -- if you "make your meld" or whatever they were saying.

At one point, I remarked that I never knew what a pinochle deck was, and one of the guys says to me, "I'm surprised, because it is probably the most popular card game there is."

The most popular? I asked. You think more than, like, poker or spades?

"Oh yeah," he replied. "I'm pretty sure it's the most popular. That and cribbage."

Pinochle and cribbage, huh? I never knew they were so popular.

"Well, in prison," the guys says. "In prison pinochle is the most popular for sure."

"Oh yeah," one of other players chimed in. "Pinochle is what you play in prison. You gotta keep your eyes on the table, lady, because the hands and the cards start moving pretty fast. Not here, because the meds make us a little shakey and slow. But in prison, pinochle is fast."

"It's also really popular in hospitals," the first added.

"Those are both places where you have a lot of time on your hands," said a third.

So true.

Sometimes, it's hard *not* to be charmed by these guys. My advice: If you ever go into a Home for the Criminally Insane, walk through the door with an open mind. You might learn something. Even if it's just how to play cards in prison. You never know when that lesson might come in handy.