Chuck Norris

I can put up with a lot of crap. I put up with other inmates talking crap. I put up with this stuff they call food. I put up with it being loud all the time. I can put up with just about anything this place can throw at me, but the one thing I have a hard time dealing with is the infamous 'Chuck Norris', a guard in the Pinellas County Jail.

His name isn't really Chuck Norris, of course, but he thinks of himself as Chuck Norris. His hat has C. Norris written on the back of it. His screen saver on his computer is of Chuck Norris holding two guns.

Actually, he likes to watch you suffer. At 8:30 a.m. every morning (30 minutes before we wake up), he is on the loudspeaker giving a speech about how we should be model citizens and act like angels. He will also announce that when we play cards, we are not allowed to "slap" the cards on the table, wear shorts in the dayroom, go into other people's rooms, and we are only allowed to play cards on one side of the dayroom - according to "Florida Jail Standards".

Besides the love of hearing himself speak, he also loves to make the inmates' lives more miserable than they already are. For instance, if you're standing in a walkway tying your shoe or something, he will write you up for blocking a fire evacuation route. Or if you don't have a shirt on, he will write you up for violating the "no-nipple rule" according to "Sub-section 7-A of the Penal Code", as he likes to say.

Every morning prior to him coming in, I wake up, make my bed, dress in full uniform, and make sure there's nothing for him to yell at me about (which he loves to do). It seems no matter what I do, he always finds something new to yell at me about.

On one particular morning, I did as I always do when I know Chuck Norris is coming to work. After I made sure I was in full uniform, bed made, shoes straight, and no trash on the floor, I laid back down. Later, when he came in to do his first population count, he came into my room and yelled at me for not having my uniform shirt on and told me to pack my stuff and move.

At that point, I jumped up and confronted him. I told him I did have my shirt on and he was wrong. I said he had no reason to move me. He didn't like that at all. He went back in my room and flipped my mattress in an angry rage.

To make a long story short - after me cursing and wanting to see the sergeant - I ended up moving, but later approached Chuck and told him how I felt. I asked him why he screwed with me more than anyone and I told him that I believe he had it out for me - which I knew for a fact was true because another deputy told me so.

Anyway, ever since then, he has hardly said anything to me. I'm not sure why, but I'm happy with it. Unfortunately, I still have to deal with him turning the TVs off while he gives a 20-minute speech about nipples or some other crap.

(Names have been changed.)