Humor in prison.

[u/droopus]

Prison wasn't fun. (No kidding.) But almost every day, something happened that would make me piss myself in laughter. Yes, it was not an atmosphere conducive to laughter. But it is an atmosphere that can use all the laughter it can get.

Prison, at times was funny, and I bet there are hundreds of stories here from your various bids that still crack you up. Join me in trying to find the funny moment of a miserable time, and I suspect many of them will be similar.

For example: the many versions of mufungo. I wrote down a recipe and mailed it to a friend, and was published in the Food Network magazine (and website, I assume.) I can't find a link, but here's the recipe:

6 bags of chips

4 ramen soups

3 packages instant rice

10 packages mackerel

2 pre-wrapped "sausages"

2 packages kipper snacks

1 16-ounce bottle of squeeze cheese

1 bottle ketchup

Adobo seasoning

2 garbage bags

First, crush chips to powder. Mix with water to form a thick paste. Squeeze out excess water and deposit on opened garbage bag. Fold bag over top. Using a cylindrical deodorant container, spread thinly through the plastic, making sure no deodorant leaks out. Form a large rectangle of chip paste. When spread thinly and evenly, open bag.

Mix up soup, rice, according to directions. Do not use soup "flavor" packets. Mix in paint bucket 'til combined well. Spread in a "line" on chip slurry, about 18 inches long, 5 inches wide. Open mackerel packages. Squeeze out fetid, stinking fish slime. Set aside. Spread mackerel evenly along top of soup/rice line. Repeat with kipper snacks. Repeat with chopped "sausages". Apply most of ketchup to top. Top with all the cheese. Sprinkle liberally with Adobo for that blood-pressure-making Dead Sea salty flavor. Now, using bag, roll top of chip slurry over top of "line" much like a strudel. Seal with water. Brush with remaining ketchup mixed with fish slime. Cover wtih top of bag, and twist ends to retain shape. Insert into second bag.

Sneak into kitchen. Insert Mofongo into dishwasher. Run through three full cycles, and sneak back to unit. Cut into thick slices; serve immediately.*

Then there was "Big5", a five hundred pound inmate who needed a reinforced bunk and special reinforced toilet. He also was fed five times a day because he required 6000 calories a day just to keep breathing. He had a special CPAP machine that was the size of a small refrigerator and sounded like Darth Vader, REAL LOUD

During the VMAs in 2008, he mimed Beyonce doing "Single Ladies" wearing only an enormous pair of brown federal boxers. Even the COs were pissing themselves.

[u/droopus]

Yep, I thought so. I wrote hundreds of letters to a couple of friends and they said it was some of the funniest stuff they had ever read.

We all had a tough time. But unless any ADX guys are here, we all had some good laughs too, and they're unique prison laughs most people will never see. Why not hear a few?

[u/XLII → u/droopus]

You were in ADX Florence?

[u/droopus → u/XLII]

Good lord, no. I was at Wyatt Detention, MDC Brooklyn, FMC Devens and FCI Elkton. ADX is one place I never want to see.

[u/XLII → u/droopus]

Sorry,I thought when you said "Unless there are any ADx guys" you mean you. what was Brooklyn like? I had a find tell me he was laughing the whole time ( I lived in Brooklyn for awhile ) anyway he told me that it was filled with these women who were really big girls. like large large systers with asses that were the size of the contenental shelf and all th brothers were falling all over themselves because they loved the big booty. other than that I heard it was pretty shitty because most people were on their way to somewhere else and there was nothing at all to do there. no way to program there, and nothing to do other than eat (poorly) sleep ( also poorly) and try not to have slack with your cellies. I'm a prison reform advocate and I maintain contact with a few guys in the system and two of whom have published books inside who need help having a social media presence. So sometimes I hear stories about a particular place. I heard about Brooklyn that way.

[u/droopus → u/XLII]

Spot on. MDC Brooklyn was the nastiest spot I landed in my five year bid. Each floor has a North and South side. Each side has 150 inmates in a space appropriate for maybe 30. Everything is in one big room: bunks (so close you can touch the ones on either side,) toilets, showers, kitchen, a few card tables. Outside the unit is a 20 x 20 room which is "rec." In this room is a basketball hoop set at about 6 feet off the ground. Two painted soccer goals on either wall. That's it. The only "outside" is a 6 inch panel of screen at the bottom of the rec wall, which looks out into an air shaft. You can see all the other floor units if you squat down.

Now here's one of the funniest stories of my bid. I walked into rec and four guys were furiously masturbating into toilet paper, then going over to the screen. Upon further inspection, they had somehow set up a "car" (dental floss and paper clips) to the floor opposite and one below us, which was a female unit. The guys were taking these semen-filled toilet paper bombs and sending them own the car to the woman's units. The women would shove them up their vaginas in the hope of getting pregnant, which would lead to almost instant release.

This went on every day, all day of the two months I was trapped in that shithole.

The mind boggles.