How did I end up at Rikers Island?
When your curiosity gets the best of you.
Back in October 2016, my Civic Corps partner and I decided that it would not make sense for us to work in Long Island City Queens and not visit Rikers Island. Not to mention, a short bus ride of 30 minutes takes passengers right at Rikers Island. With that being said, we decided one work day afternoon to take a trip over to the island.
Boy, oh boy did we get more than we bargained for.
As soon as the bus arrived in front of the jail facility, a guard boarded the bus with an announcement as follows: “Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Rikers, we need everyone to turn off their cell phone and listen up. Each and every single one of you will un-board the bus and follow the security guard by the door. He will walk you into the security area for a quick scan.” At this point, my Civic Corps partner and I started looking at each other and wondering WTF did we get ourselves into. As we started to panic, we decided to stay back while everyone else walked their way to the front of the bus to make their exit. Meanwhile, a third guard walks in the bus to check the seats for any contraband, and hidden bodies. He walks towards us and ushers us to leave. We quickly pulled out our work IDs ans started pleading our case. We told the guard we did not come for visitation because we do not actually know anyone inside, we just wanted to see what Rikers looked like.
The guard looked us and said, “it doesn’t matter if you are going inside or not, everyone on this bus needs to exit and proceed to the security area. Once screened, you will be allowed to make your way out and wait for the departing bus heading back.” Feeling shaken yet somewhat relieved, we made our way off the bus and into the security scanning area. As we all stood in a half oval, a female guard came in with a big Belgian Malinois sniffer dog. I immediately started panicking as I’m scared of big dogs. Lucky me, I was the first in line. As she’s standing next to me with the dog, giving her run down speech of what’s going to happen, I held my breath, praying the scan goes as quickly as possible.
Then the sniff began.
The dog stopped in front of me and immediately went for my coochie. I did a little jump back and quickly the guard told me to stay in one place and not move. Lord, how could I not when I have a dog’s nose at my coochie. Then the dog made its round sniffing everyone’s private part.
But, that was only the beginning.
One woman, one very unlucky woman, had the pleasure of having her coochie sniffed not just once, or twice but thrice because the dog must have either smelled something illegal or really loved the smell of her coochie. Anyways, it turned out to be a false alarm and we were told to head back out if we weren’t visiting. I was among the first four people to make my way out.
Never again!
Introvertedly Quirky 