Locked In with Ian Bick - Inside Life as a Female Prison Guard | Marrying an Inmate & Working in Corrections | Raquel Bryant

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

Raquel Bryant, a former corrections officer, shares what it’s like working inside the Arizona prison system and how she later married a former inmate after his release. From life inside corrections to life after incarceration, Raquel talks about relationships, second chances, and breaking societal norms. #FemalePrisonGuard #CorrectionsOfficer #LifeBehindBars #PrisonLoveStory #TrueCrime #WomenInCorrections #PrisonRelationships #InmateLove Thank you to ORGAIN for sponsoring this episode! For 30% off your order, head to https://Orgain.com/IANBICK and use code IANBICK.   Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Connect with Raquel Bryant: IG: https://www.instagram.com/mrsbryant0407/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TimeServedPodcast Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://www.ianbick.com/shop Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 From Corrections Officer to Meeting My Husband 00:04:36 Choosing a Dental Career: Family Influence 00:09:19 Journey to Join the Corrections Academy 00:18:41 Discovering Orgain's Protein Shakes 00:23:25 Perspectives on Inmate Treatment 00:28:17 Maintaining Faith Through Trials 00:32:59 Life Inside Different Prison Yards 00:38:05 Handling Inmate Challenges as a New Officer 00:42:36 Life Inside a Small Facility 00:47:15 Challenges for Female Correctional Officers 00:51:45 The Story of the Overzealous Officer 00:56:07 Life of a Prison Employee and College Student 01:00:26 Meeting My Husband in an Unexpected Place 01:05:24 The Three-Year Job Rotation Dilemma 01:10:31 Unexpected Friendship and Life Lessons 01:13:37 Closing Remarks and Encouragement Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Lockton. We're at your home studio. You and your husband, Michael. I just did your podcast. We're going to have Michael on the show, too. We're in Phoenix, Arizona, right? Yep. I think this is my first time in Phoenix. Is it really? Yeah, I think so. I was supposed to come here a few years ago to visit someone and there was a snowstorm and never ended up coming. Oh, a snowstorm. Not here. Yeah, yeah. Was it back in Connecticut? We don't have them. No, no, no. Have you ever seen snow? Yes. I hate it. You hate snow? I hate so much. I hate so much. You picked a good place. It's actually warmer here than when I was,

than it was in L.A. too. Yeah, it's hot. Yeah, I just flew from L.A. And it was like cold. I brought just shorts and one hoodie and it was like freezing every night. It was not enough. Wow.

It was pretty crazy. Yeah, I never know what to pack when I travel anywhere because everywhere I go, it's colder than here. So I either pack for too cold or, I'm, you know, freezing because I packed her too hot. Yeah. So you have an interesting story.

Like you've lived an interesting life. You were an ex-correction officer. You've been out for almost 10 years now, right? Yep. And you actually met your husband who used to be an inmate there. Not when you guys were there at the same time, but you guys didn't get together. You didn't do anything illegal. We'll clear that up.

Yes. You weren't a corrupt guard. But you guys ended up getting married after. I think that's fascinating. and that'll be cool to hear about later. Did you grow up in Arizona? I did, yes. I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona,

and always hated it there. So I couldn't wait to move. And funny thing happened when I met Michael. I was actually in the process of moving to Phoenix, and that's where he was in. He was living in Phoenix, so kind of all worked out that way. Who do you grow up with? My mom and my dad and I have a little brother. He is six years younger than I am. And for the most part, it was just the four of us. We grew up, you know, humble beginnings, I guess you could say.

Did you have any job aspirations when you're a kid? Like, what do you want to do when you grew up? I wanted to be in the military at big, big goals, big dreams. I wanted to be like a sniper. A sniper. A sniper. I wanted to do the FBI or just crazy stuff. I wanted to join the FBI too. Really? Yeah, my dream was to go to UCLA, get in the FBI, become a special agent, do that whole thing.

Same. We used to dress up pretending like we were FBI agents with the Airsoft guns and everything. Wow. It was obviously I went a completely different path, but oh, well. So why that? What made you interested in that? I don't know. Since I was a kid, I always was interested in crime stuff.

I used to watch, like, as long as I could remember when I was just a child, I would watch America's Most Wanted. That's kind of what initiated it. And then growing up, I would binge watch, like, investigation discovery and just watch all the crime shows. And I thought, man, I'd be a really good detective. And then military just because I've kind of always been like a tomboy. and I have like a soldier mentality rather than like a girly. I was always like a tomboy. So I thought, you know, that'd be pretty badass, be in the military, travel.

I wanted to just travel the world. I knew since I was a kid I didn't want to stay stuck in Tucson, Arizona. Did you have family in law enforcement at all? No, I had a few family members that were on the other side of the fence. my dad being one of them. He never went to prison, but he had an alcohol problem. He was an alcoholic, and he was in and out of jail growing up. So that was pretty tough on me.

And I just knew, like, I don't ever want to go that route. I don't ever want to have, you know, any kind of addiction. I'm a scaredy cat, so I was like, I'm never going to break the law. I never want my freedoms taken away. So I just wanted to go the complete opposite route. My grandfather was military for many, many, many years, I think, like 40 years. So, but that's like the gist of it. Other than that, it's nothing really exciting.

What do your family think of your aspirations and goals and dreams? They didn't like it at all. My mom, she has been a dental assistant for, I think, like, 30. years maybe, maybe 25, 30 years. She's been in the dental field for as long as I can remember. And she kind of was pushing me more towards that. You know, go be a dental hygienist, be a dentist, if that. But never, they never wanted me to go down the law enforcement route or the military route. It was always like something safe, like a little office job. For me, that was just not ever what I really wanted to do. So I did kind of go the dental route like my mom told me right out of high school.

I think like two weeks after I graduated, I went and started dental assisting school. And it was like a nine month program. And right out of school, I became a dental assistant. I did that for a couple years. And I absolutely hated it. And I love dental school. That was fun. Like I loved learning all that stuff.

but I didn't enjoy the actual job. So I was just looking for something more, something different. I wasn't making good money doing that either. I was working two jobs and going to college. So I was always busy, a dental assistant Monday through Friday, and then I had like a weekend job at like a shoe store. And that job, everything, every penny I made for that job literally just went to like my tuition, my books, my classes. So that's not the route that I wanted to go. And I had heard in

school, one of my classmates had told me about the corrections officer job. And that's where I first got into it is he told me that. And at first I was like, you're crazy. I could never do that. And he's like, no, there's a girl in my academy. She's your height. You could do it. I was like, Fine. Okay. Let me look into it. And I did. I like hesitated. It took me a few months before I finally like actually went for it. And how old are you when you applied? 20. I was like a week away from my 21st birthday. Back then the age limit was 21. So as long as you were 21 by the time you graduated, you could start the process. No, I'm surprised there was an age limit on it. Yeah. Now it's 18. Well, yeah. I think they needed to be 18 because of their hiring issues. Yeah. No, back then, it was different. It took a really long time to get into the job just to even get into the academy. It was a really long process. I started, like I said, when I was 20, like a week before I turned 21, I did the test. And then I talked to a few people and they were trying to talk me out of it. They're like, don't do it. Just like stay in school. You got, you know, big.

goals just keep going for that. I was like, no, I don't know. It makes more money than dental assisting. I won't have to work two jobs. I think I'm just going to do it. And I did. I continued on with the application process. I waited a while, though. After I passed the initial test, there's like a whole bunch of other stuff you have to do. There's like a packet like this thick that you have to fill out and turn in. I didn't turn it in for like three months because I was hesitant. I was like, I don't know if I want to do this. I don't, I knew I didn't want to be a corrections officer for the rest of my life.

Like, that was even too small for me. I wanted more. But I don't know. I was just so unsure about it. But at the end of the day, it was more money. I wouldn't have to work two jobs. And it was completely different from dental assisting. Yeah.

Did you feel bad jumping careers like somewhere in your mind? you're like, am I doing the right thing? Like, I just invested so much time and probably even money to get this degree and job. You know, what was that thought process like? No, not really. When I was younger, I was really like gung-ho and really motivated. I was kind of in the process to join the military after dental assisting school. It was around the same period of time as I heard about the corrections.

because like I said, Dunnell assisting was just not the route I should have ever taken. It was just not for me. So I was like, well, let me try the military. And I was just like testing out different things. And I didn't score as highly as I wanted to on the ASVAP. So I was like, oh, okay, I'm not ready to join just yet because I wanted to be a military police.

I didn't score high enough for that. So I'm like, ah, I'll just wait. and then I kind of drug my feet and then the corrections thing came about and I just kind of went forward with that and I was excited. I was so excited. But like I said, it took a while. It took about 10 months before I finally got into the academy. Did your dad's criminal history have any effect on the application process? I don't know. I know that they did go through his background and they checked all of that. I had a couple of uncles too who had been to prison. So I did have to include all that information. Like I said,

the packet's like this thick. And everything you put in that packet, they review it. Like anybody you put a name and number, like former employers or anything like that, they call all of them and references everybody. So I think that's why it did take a while. And then you have to do fingerprints. There's a fitness test that you have to take, a psychological test. There's tons of tests and they're all on separate days. So it's a whole process. And then in the middle of all of that, I had gotten pregnant. So I was like, oh, shoot. It was so backtracking a little bit. I was with my high school sweetheart. We had been together for five years. And he, um, he is no longer a part of our lives. It ended as horribly as you could imagine. But back then,

like, we were, we'd been together for five years since my junior year of high school. And so, yeah, we were pretty excited. And it just added, like, a whole other, you know, obstacle to the whole corrections officer thing. Because when they did finally call me to join the academy, I was so excited I got the call. I had been waiting for this call. I was like, oh, my gosh. Yay. And then they're like, yeah, you're going to start the academy next week. I was like, cool, awesome. Hung up the phone. And then I realized like, oh, crap. I'm like eight months pregnant right now. Oh, you already eight months pregnant? Oh, wow. I was like, I better call them back.

So that wasn't too much longer of a wait then, right? Well, when I called them back, they were like, yeah, you're going to have to start the whole process over again. In a few months or? Yeah, like after the baby and everything. I was like, no. I was like, please don't make me start over. I promise. Just let me, you know, do you next month. Let me have the baby.

I'll get right back into everything. I'll get a doctor's note and everything. They're like, yeah, okay, as long as your doctor clears it, then just give us a call back. We'll hold your spot. I was like, yes. Okay, cool. So I was super excited for that.

I had my son in December of 2012. And then, yeah, then I, went to my doctor and I told her what was what my plan was and that I needed the doctor's note. And she looked at me like I was absolutely insane. She was like, what? You want to do what? She's like, four weeks ago, you just had a baby. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's okay. It's okay. I'm good. I got this. And she was like, okay, I'll sign the doctor's note for you, but I don't know about this. I was like, it's okay. It's good. It's all good. So she signed it. She sent it off. Somewhere along the way, it didn't get to them, like it didn't get faxed over in time.

So I'd wait an additional two weeks. So I started the academy six weeks after I had my son. And you were nervous at all going into that line of work with a newborn baby? No. Really? Yeah. Wow. I was just like, back then, my mentality was just like I can do anything and everything that I want to do.

Like, nothing's going to stop me. My mom was pretty upset when I had my son. and she told me like you're never going to finish school now like she had all these just doubts um and i i assured her like no me having a baby is not going to stop me from anything i got this and um yeah i nothing really ever did stop me um even having my son and then shortly after i had him um i've actually really never shared the story before not even on our own channel but um so after i had my son um he was three months old and my ex-fiance my high school sweetheart um he shook him and almost killed him um he was in critical condition for

a couple weeks i had just started working at the prison um and thankfully they were very understanding um they let me take a little time off so I could be there for him while he was in the hospital and I live there with him because it happened. This is so crazy. It happened the day that me and my ex were supposed to move in together. It was actually, I was helping my mom move out of her house or, well, our house because I lived with her at the time. And I was moving in with him.

was the first time ever. Like I said, we'd been together since the junior year of high school. And at this point, I'm 22. But we were just taking things a little slower, I guess. I was just more focused on school. So we had never actually taken the jump and moved in together. And then we had my son. So we were like, well, let's move in together. And like I said, it happened the same day that I was supposed to move in with him is what everything happened to my son. So, When everything happened, he was in critical condition. He lived in the hospital for about a month, and I lived there with him. My mom, like, held all my stuff at her new house, and I lived in the hospital with my son.

And I would, after my time that the prison gave me off, they told me I had to come back. They're like, there's no more PTO time that we can give you. Luckily, I worked a graveyard shift when I first started. So I was able to, you know, be at the hospital with my son, the day and at night when he was asleep, I'd just go off to work at the prison. And then just come back to the hospital. And thankfully, the nurses were very helpful. They would let me, like, sleep a little in the daytime and watch over him. But that's where we lived for, like, a month after he was born. So he was about from when he was three months old to four months old,

we lived in the hospital. And that's what ended that relationship. Like I said. Did he get arrested or anything after that? He did. It took some time. It took a few days and I just like, I didn't have anything. I had nothing but the clothes that I was wearing because I didn't want to go back there where he was at. They didn't arrest him right away.

He confessed to shaking him out of just, I guess, frustration. And I just never saw that coming. It just hit me very hard. I was shocked. And so that, yeah, that happened. Then he was out on bail for like six months. I just stayed away. We had court hearings and stuff to sever his rights.

And that's like really the only time I really saw him after that. And then he ended up getting sentenced to six and a half years in prison. And he got out. His rights have been severed. I don't ever have to worry about him ever coming back and being involved at all. I don't have to worry about any custody battles or anything like that. And then we recently found out that he is actually back in prison for another like three more years for beating up his new girlfriend. And he's had like two more kids since.

So just craziness. I think that someone like that shouldn't be released back into the world. That's the type of person I think should stay in prison. All right, hold up. You know how everyone says healthy food is either boring or just a hassle. Yeah, that's not the case with organ. I'm here to tell you that I've found a protein shake that actually tastes incredible. And it's packed with real nutrition that's going to make your life so much easier.

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So listen, if you want to experience the magic of organ for your... yourself, head over to orgaine.com slash Ian Bick and use code Ian Bick for 30% off your order. Yes, you heard that right, 30% off. But you've got to use my code Ian Bick. That's 30% off your entire order. Just go to orgaine.com slash Ian Bick and use my code Ian Bick at checkout. Don't wait, fuel up and thank me later. Now let's get back into today's episode. Yeah, what was your view on, you know, inmates going into that field? that line of work, you must add some, a view on them. Yeah, I definitely did. I think I had a more unique view on it than other corrections officers that I worked with because, like I said,

my father was in and out of jail growing up and I was very close to my father. He's now passed, but I was extremely close to him growing up. We had our issues because of his alcohol addiction. when he would drink, he was a different person, and I didn't like that person. I just loved my dad, and he was just not my dad when he would drink. But I knew that he was a really kind of person. Like he was the kind of person that would give you the shirt off his back if he needed it. Just a sweetheart, just a big old teddy bear. And so I knew people make mistakes.

people have, you know, demons. They're fighting with addictions, whatever. And so I didn't ever really judge the inmates too much for, well, I didn't judge because, you know, people make mistakes and they end up in prison. But other COs, like, they kind of just all looked at inmates as just trash, like, just, you know, lower than them. And I didn't see it that way. I just saw them as people. I just saw them the people who made mistakes and they're just here to do their time. So I didn't really have the same attitude towards the inmates as everyone else. But I did have to put on like a very tough, hard-ass exterior and I was not a very nice CO. You could even ask Michael, my husband, he did not like me whatsoever when I was a CEO. So most people didn't. I just, I wasn't very nice to them. And I, which is so opposite of me, I am actually a very nice person.

But in there, I had to put on like this persona because I was a young female working at a mills prison. So not only did I have the inmates watching me, seeing what kind of officer I was, seeing if they could, you know, get me to become compromised, bring whatever in or whatever, you know, inmates do when they're scoping out the COs. So I had to put on a really hard exterior for that, but then also for the other COs that I worked with and the higher-ups, the sergeants, the lieutenants, everybody, you know, when I joined the academy, they really didn't think I could do it. I was very in the academy. I was very shy, not like a loud person, just shy and I guess timid almost when I joined the

Academy. I was very gung-holy, like, I'm going to do this. I got this, but just shy and nice, and they just didn't think that I could do it. What were the views of the inmates from the other guards, your co-workers? From the inmates to the other COs. Like, what did the, you had, you just shared with us your perspective. What was your co-workers' perspective of the inmates? Not very good. Just like, inmates were. subpar to them like they were just like criminals um they treated them badly they treated them like they were better than them um and i didn't like that because a lot of the COs that i knew i knew um that they weren't like totally innocent like i knew a lot of them were out drinking and driving on the

weekends or, you know, some even did drugs. And I'm just like, who are you to judge these people in here doing their time when you go out and you commit crimes too? You just haven't been caught. Why are you treating this other human here? Human? Like, they would treat them not like humans. And I just never, I never felt like that was okay. I, I'm a Christian. I've always been very religious. I didn't grow up in a religious household. Like my mom and my dad, my mom worked a lot. She didn't, she didn't really have much time to do much with us. Like I said, we grew up pretty poor. We didn't have a lot of money. My dad, he didn't really, he didn't really work. He had, you know, his alcohol addiction in and out of jail. So he never really held, like, a steady job. So it was a

really just me and my brother a lot of the time just hanging out at home and my mom and my dad they didn't really raise us in any sort of religion or anything like that but I had a friend when I was a little little kid like eight years old nine years old I had a friend her family would take me with them to church and that's when I kind of first started getting into the Bible. Bible and God. I didn't know much about it. I just knew like, oh, I believe in God and I love God. And that was it.

And then, like, you know, time goes on and friendships kind of go their own separate ways. And then after like 9, 10-ish, I hadn't been in church. I never lost my faith. I just didn't go to church. learned more of God. I just knew I loved God and that was all. Like I didn't know too much more. I knew that like God wanted you to treat other people well. And then when I was like, no, 14, 13, 14, my mom just one day was like, hey, we're getting you guys into a catechism school. And I'm like, what the heck is that? And she's like, we're going to go to church. And it was just like one day

to the next. Like, like I said, we weren't in a religious household. We weren't. going to church every Sunday. Like we didn't even talk about God to boom. Now we're in church every single Sunday. And not just church, but like mass, like two hour long mass in a Catholic church, something like I've never experienced before. And then Saturday, every single Saturday we had to go to catechism school where we learned about God and the Bible, everything like that. So it was just like a huge change. And then it really like brought me back into, wow, I really love.

God and, you know, everything like that. And then we got our sacraments done in the Catholic religion. You have, I think it's like seven sacraments that you have to do. We got all of those done except for the next one would have been marriage. But yeah, we had gotten all of those done, confirmation, baptism, everything. I got baptized at like 15. So. I mean, grown people get baptized in prison.

later on. Yeah. It was just so strange because like I said, like we didn't grow up at all. And then just from one day to the next, my mom just put us into catechism school and going to mass every Sunday. And then right after we got all of our sacraments done, that was it. We never went back to church again. Wow. She had a midlife crisis. It was just so strange. And I asked her about it recently. Like, why did you do that? And she said, oh, just in case you wanted to get married in the Catholic Church. You had to go through all of that first. And in case you wanted to, you know, keep moving on in the Catholic religion,

I just wanted you to have all that taken care of, like, done. Okay. Cool. But that was like, that was pretty much it there during my childhood. And then in my early, like, 20s, I started going to church by myself. And like I said, I never not once lost faith. And then when everything happened to my son, I got pulled back in, like, hard. I can't explain to you how hard I prayed during that time.

And, you know, I made a deal. I prayed to God. And I told him, like, please just let my son live, let him survive. And I'll never stray away again. I will always love you. and and I've kept that promise. I have never lost my faith not once to this day. But I guess I said all that to say.

Like just I see, I would see the inmates as other human beings, you know, other children of God, and you should just treat everyone well. And to see them being treated anything less than that was, not something I was okay with. What kind of mistreatment were you seeing from other officers? And would you do anything to stop it yourself? I would not.

Because if you are, it was very easy to be labeled an inmate lover. If you showed any sort of compassion towards the inmates, I guess, or if you, you know, stopped another officer from doing a search that they shouldn't be doing or like searching in a way that they shouldn't be searching like a just you know a cruel kind of search like I was um witness one time of another officer searching an inmate's house and he had his coffee in a peanut butter jar and he dumped the coffee in the trash and told him this is not in the original container and I'm just like do think wow that was like a little cruel and unusual punishment they're like why would you do that um and just things like

that just like mistreatment, name calling, just, you know, officers cussing at the inmates, inmates coming to them with like complaints, which from an officer standpoint, they complained a lot. Like, it was ridiculous the things that they'd come and complain about. But like, you still have to be professional. And these officers just weren't. They'd be like, get the out of my face. Like, okay, deal with it. You're in prison. Suck it up. You're an inmate. like, damn. What was the most ridiculous complaint you got? I can't even remember what his complaint was,

but he like went on this long tangent. This was when I first started to, and it was graveyard shift, and he's just going on and on and on. Something about his release day and like something that I obviously couldn't help him with. I'm like, that's your CO3, your counselor. like they're the ones who orchestrate all that.

I can't help you with that. And then he looked at me and said, well, what the fuck are you here for? And I was like, sir, I am here to protect you and make sure that nothing happens to you. And then I put him on report, which is giving him a ticket. And he got so upset. And his like, hold of me to just like completely changed. He said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

C.L. please. I'm about to get out. Like, please don't give me a ticket. Blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, no, you're not going to disrespect me. I was here with you professional and you completely. just turned on me when it's something like, I can't help you with. I guess, no, that wasn't like the most ridiculous one.

That one was just like that when you asked that question, it popped in my head because the way he reacted. But like the blankets being so thin or the pillows being thin. They had pillows in there? Yeah. Oh, we didn't have pillows. I mean, they're like, they were thin. It's better than no pillow, you know?

Yeah. is just stuff like out of our control like there was really nothing we could do to help with that kind of stuff what kind of inmates were held at the facility you worked in and did you only work at one facility um i did but um that facility had so it was a minimum yard that i worked out that i was assigned to um but there were other units um on that complex there were i think nine maybe 10 other units and they were anywhere from minimum to medium yards or high medium yards. Some of them were three, fours. So three and four is like three is a medium and four is like a really high medium.

I don't think it's maximum. Maximum is five and there weren't any at the facility I worked at. Except for the miners unit where they held the miners. that was a maximum yard and that was ran very securely. But my yard was a minimum yard. So it was just like, I guess how you kind of described the camps similar to that. Obviously more prison-y because it wasn't just like they can walk on and off wherever, you know, the grounds. But it was like a big community.

We had these houses that were like, what can I describe them as? Kind of like Costco's. Just filled with bunk beds all over the place. And it was huge. It was a huge yard. There was 1,250 inmates that could be house there. And about 1,100 of them were house at any given time, sometimes more.

And very short staff. And that was the yard that I was assigned to. That's where I mainly worked. but being that the whole facility was understaffed, they would have to prioritize the higher yards to be staffed over the minimum yards. So what they would do is they would take the staff from our yards, the minimum yards, and make them go work with the higher yards.

So every day we'd come in, there'd be about 10 of us that would come in to shift, and they'd send about six of us out or five of us out. basically they'd like cut our whole crew in half and send you know half of us out to other yards and then so that gave me the opportunity to work at every yard there at the facility so higher yards as well so I had seen yards that had cells I had seen yards that had little like units and then like the minimum yard the I worked out where it was like a huge Like a college campus old Yeah

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Some were good. Some were bad. It's a really tough job to be a female at. It's, the guys were kind of annoying. They would hit on you, even the married one sometimes. And it's just like, that's just the atmosphere there in the prison.

And I had been warned about that before going into it. That was one of the reasons I was kind of hesitant on. They're just, yeah. But there were some really cool ones. There were some officers I worked with that were they were like older guys that would watch out for me kind of like if I was like their daughter. Some of them treated me like a sister. Others were, you know, just douchebags.

It was a good mix, I guess, I guess you could say. Did any of them ever make like false accusations or rumors about you? I had a few rumors, yeah. It's prison. It was like high school. The inmates made rumors. The other CEOs made rumors. It was ridiculous.

Would a lot of the coworkers hang out after hours, maybe date each other, do things like that? Oh, yeah. And it's very cliqueish. Like they had their little groups and sometimes the little groups would be mad at the other little groups. since it was literally like high school on steroids. And then you have the inmates to throw into the mix, too, and the inmates would watch all this go down. And there was like two officers I worked with,

and one had a fiancé and the other one was married. The married one was going through a divorce. The one who was engaged found out that the married one had been sleeping with his fiance and got her pregnant. Like that's the kind of drama that would happen. And the inmates hear about it and they talk about it because this happened in our prison. One of like the case managers, there was a room where she was dating an inmate and her husband was like the kitchen CEO.

It was a big mess. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Like I don't know how many times I heard the rumor that I was pregnant. And I'm like, no, you guys, I just gained a little weight. It's not, I heard that one like three times. I'm just like, okay. It just got annoying at that point.

Do you remember the first time an inmate tried to like try you to see how you were as a new officer and then how you responded to that? Yes. It was, I was still pretty dang new. I think it was in my first like month or two. And it actually, I handled it the absolute best way possible. I was very professional with him and told them like, hey, you are out of line, sir. You need to just like get out of here. And he didn't. He kept going. I'm like, okay, great. So I had to take it a step further and write him a ticket.

And my ticket was so long and lengthy. So the tickets for us as COs, we had to like handwrite them and then turn them into your supervisor. So your lieutenant or your sergeant and then it goes up the ranks. And those tickets could potentially make the inmate score higher and move them to bump them to higher yards. It could put them on LOP, which is loss of privileges. That would mean it takes away their phone time, their visitation, the amount that they can spend on the store. Like, the tickets could really hurt the inmates. But I was pretty dang good at them.

So mine usually stuck, because they have to go through a whole process. They have to go see an officer who goes over the ticket and either, you know, makes it stick or dismisses it. Mine usually stuck because I wrote them so well. And I was very good at writing since I was a kid, even in college. Like, I should have gone that route. But, yeah, they stuck. And that first incident with that inmate who's testing me that day actually landed me employee of the month. month. And it was nuts. Like I never expected. I was still really, really new. I was just a kid. I was

like 22 years old, you know, still in college and everything. But I come into shift one night and the captain's there. And the captain never stayed for graveyard shift. So we all thought like, uh-oh, something really bad happened during day shift or somebody's in some big trouble because why is the captain here? And then the captain started talking during our briefing, and he was like, there's an officer here that we're going to recognize as employee of the month. And he was like, this report got, you know, given to me. It landed on my desk. And I had never seen a more well-written ticket before and blah, blah, blah.

And he's just going on. And I'm looking around like, ooh, who is it? And he was like, this officer hasn't been with us very long. And so I'm looking around at all the other new CEO. I was like, oh, was it you? Was it you? And then they said my name. I was like, what?

That's funny. It's like, you're kidding me. And they, like, took my picture and everything. They gave me a little certificate and award. Employee the month. Officer of the month. It was nuts. They even printed it out and passed it around, like, the whole complex and, like, the

monthly flyers or whatever that goes around to all the yards. And it's like the picture of me and the captain, like, shaking my hand and me get in the award, but in their printouts it had my first name on it. And those printouts somehow landed in an inmate's hands. So my first name got leaked to all the inmates, which wasn't too big of a deal because I was from Tucson. I was working at a Tucson complex, and Tucson's kind of a small town. It's, I wouldn't say small town, but it's a small city. So if you go to a store, you're more than likely going to run into somebody, you know, is kind of how small it is. So I did see other inmates there that I had gone to school with. One time I was like doing a shift

at another yard and I'm doing count. And I looked down at the name on the paper. and I'm like, oh, that name looks really familiar. And then I look up to, you have to do the name, look up at the inmate and see their ID. And I look up at the inmate. And it's my uncle sitting right there just smiling at me. And I'm like... And that was allowed that you were able to be in that facility with him? I had to report that, but there wasn't really much that they could do because Tucson was like really small.

It's like you're going to run into people, you know? Like I worked with lots of other COs I went to school with or that I knew there were inmates everywhere that pretty much all of us had some sort of, you know, knowledge of them beforehand. So all you have to do, though, is report it and then, I mean, if it's something like very serious, like a really close personal relationship, they're going to move them. For me, I guess it wasn't that big of a deal because I didn't work at that yard normally. So they really didn't, I made the report, it turned in. They didn't do anything about it, though. Chances of me ending up at that yard again where I guess not very likely.

Were you surprised by inmate habits, hygiene, the way they, you know, carried themselves, kept their cells, everything like that? I was, actually. Going into the job, I thought what everybody else thinks, you know, what you see in movies, that inmates were going to be big, mean, scary, smelly people. And they weren't. They were just normal people. for the most part

it was a very I mean I wouldn't say clean place like it smelled clean like it always smelled like bleach and cleaning supplies sometimes it smelled like the baloney because they would put the baloney in the microwaves but oh the fried balloon yes

anytime I think of that I think of the smell of either the cleaning cleaning supplies or fried baloney that reminds me of prison but no they kept the place pretty pretty clean they kept their areas pretty neat and tidy obviously they had to otherwise they could get in trouble for that with the races and also with the with the guards we could write tickets for inmates who didn't have their living areas

in order but it was pretty pretty well kept for them being in prison I was just surprised at how close contact they were with you. Like they're as far apart as you and I are. And I just was shocked. My first day, I was like, whoa, what is this? I thought they were all going to be locked up in cells. Like I didn't expect to see what I saw. So it was definitely surprising.

Do you think that some of the female officers are given a lot of attention by the male inmates, which is why some of them, you know, turn go corrupt? Definitely. And that's kind of why I came into the job with that hard-ass, mean, bitchy exterior of my persona, my CEO persona, because I just wanted to come into the job with them staying away. So I didn't ever have to have that kind of issue of anyone thinking anything other than that. Do you ever look back at a moment and wish you weren't mean at one point? maybe you overstepped or, you know, you made their day worse because of your attitude.

Definitely. Yeah, there's definitely some moments that I do regret. Some situations I think I could have handled a little better. I stayed pretty professional a lot of the time, but there were moments where I did lose my cool a little bit, maybe cussed a little bit or just wasn't as professional as I should have been. But they test you, man. Do they test you? Yeah, it's got to be pretty hard to hold it together and act professional and be there.

You're under the pressure of it. It's probably a little bit like sports, you know, where the other team or the other fans for the other team are booing against you and maybe even throwing stuff at you. Yeah. You're under a lot of pressure to still perform at your best. Yep. Yep, definitely. And you got the pressure from your peers, your staff, your, you know, other COs.

At our unit, we had cameras. Those cameras were pretty dang good, too. You could zoom in really close and, like, read a book that someone's reading. Those cameras were insane. And the higher-ups would sometimes watch those cameras. I know, like, SSU for us, SSU is, like, the security, secret security, or not secret security, security unit. They look for gangs, and they're also watching for, like, corrupt COs and things like that.

Was it like SIS we had? Probably. Yeah, they're like just like their own little secret like CIA group of the COs. They, they would definitely watch for female COs, I think, over males. I remember my first week being a CO, I was on training still. So I was working with, you know, veteran COs. And they introduced me to one of the SSU officers. and he like interrogated me.

And I'm like, sir, I just started. I don't know anyone. He's like, why are you here? I was like, to work, to be an officer? He's like, but why? To make money? And he's like, hmm, you look pretty young. And I'm like, yeah, yes, sir, I'm 22.

And he was just like, just his questions that he was asking. He, like, really interrogated me. And he pulled me away from the other officer, too. too that was training me. He was like, come over here with me. And he was like questioning me the whole time. And he was very, very mean. Wow. So, and I saw that a lot with a lot of the female officers. So it was definitely a tougher job for a female officer than a mill officer for sure. Did you respond to any fights at all yourself? Yes, I did. I had. What was that like?

It sucked because the pepper spray in the air. Oh, you got pepper sprayed yourself? Yes, we had to in the academy. And it was one of the most traumatic days. I remember I almost just walked out. My goal in the academy when they pepper sprayed us, my goal was to be the first one because I saw the class before us get pepper sprayed and I saw that there was a huge line of people waiting to get to the water to wash your eyes out. And I was like, I'm not going to wait. I'm not going to be waiting in line to get to the water.

I want to get to the water and I just want to be the first person. So I was the first person in line that day to get pepper sprayed. And we were out like on the field, the football field or the track field, I should say. And then the wind shifted. And the sergeant was like, okay, everybody move. And I wasn't like first in line anymore. I was like, I don't know, 10th or 11th at this point. And I saw everybody going getting pepper sprayed and they were just screaming.

And it was just so, it looked so painful. And I was like, yeah, never mind. I don't want to do this anymore. I was like, I just want to go. And I tried to, like, walk off the field, and my sergeant called me over there. And he was like, what are you doing? I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. He's like, you've come this far.

I was like, I don't want to do that. And he was like, you just had a baby. Like, labor had to have been way more worse than this. And I was like, I just, that looks very painful. I don't want to do that. Was it worse? Or? For me, yes. Pregnancy was worse or pepper spray was worse? Pepper spray. Pepper spray was so much worse.

Like, it was horrible. What would you compare it to? Because I remember that too. After I had gotten pepper sprayed, my sergeant reminded me of having a baby going through labor. And I was like, I'd rather have four more babies than do this again. Like, I was crying because they didn't pepper spray me because I resisted. they fogged me. So it wasn't just the little canister. It was the big, the big boy canister because I was refusing.

And so they just had to surprise me. So I was talking to my sergeant right here. And then another sergeant over here called my name. So I turned. And as soon as I turned, just whew. And it was just excruciating pain. Like it just felt like glass shards in my eyeballs is what it felt like. It was just miserable.

And so anytime like a fight happened and on the radio if they said like, or pepper spray has been deployed, I'm like, crap. I don't want to go respond to this. But you have to especially because the, you know, the prisons are so short staff. Exema is unpredictable. But you can flare less with ebbglyss. A once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four-months, and 10 people taking ebbglis achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks.

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No, no, no, I wasn't that bad. You weren't a super cop? We'll see what Michael has to say. Yeah, right? Oh, there's a story there. You told me at the car. Yeah. No, this cop, he took it to a whole other level.

like he probably did at least 15 cell searches every shift that was he was just spent his whole shift just going around and searching inmates and just harassing them for no reason me i was just like if you come to me i'm going to be very just get out of my get out of my way like just you know don't bother me but he was actually like going out and harassing the inmates and uh so this one he was in the chow hall while the inmates were being served their dinner and an inmate had grabbed an extra tray and he saw that the inmate got an extra tray and he went over there and he grabbed the tray out of the inmate's hands and like just yanked it away from him and told him like you're not getting an extra tray I don't know what he told him but that's what I'm assuming he told him well the inmate did not

react well to that he yanked the tray back out of his hands and then smacked him with it and then he like choked him and some other stuff. Like he just attacked him after that. And the pepper spray did get deployed that day in the chow hall. And I responded to that one. So that sucked. That's funny.

But I did know of other COs too that got assaulted. It happens. Did anyone ever assault you? No, but there was one day the inmate had told another inmate. There was an inmate that I had written a ticket for, and it was a pretty serious ticket. And the officer who did the disciplinaries, he held my ticket, and that inmate was getting bumped up to a higher yard. And he was very upset about this, I guess. And so he had told one of the other inmates that he was going to assault me as soon as I got to shift. And so I came

to shift that day, not knowing anything about any of this. That ticket I had wrote for that inmate had happened like a couple weeks before. So I had forgot all about him and the ticket and everything. And I get to shift and everyone's freaking out and they're like, you can't go on to the yard. You need to stay up here in the yard office. You can't. Not yet. And I'm like, why, what's going on? And they like put me in this room. And they're like, you can't even like walk around the yard office right now. You have to be in isolation. I'm like, what the heck is going on? Somebody just tell me what's going on. And finally, they came and told me that the inmate, that inmate had told another inmate who told a CO. He just happened to tell the wrong inmate. But that, for me, it was the right

inmate. But he had told the other inmate he was going to assault me because of that ticket as soon as I got to get to the yard. That inmate went and told the CO and it, you know, escalated from it. Went up the ranks and then they moved the inmate before I got to shift. But I wasn't allowed to be anywhere near the inmate wasn't even allowed to be on the yard until that inmate was moved. What surprised you the most about working there? I guess just it's not really what you think, what you see on the movies or on TV. Inmates really are just like normal people for the most part. I mean, there are some that, like I said, some people definitely do belong in prison and should

stay there. But for the most part, it's a lot of normal people that just made some mistakes and they're just there to do their time. And they're just like really happy. I didn't really see a lot of angry inmates every now and then. But for the most part, everyone's like really just laid back, just happy people, very positive people, very motivated. I just didn't expect that going into that job. I thought it was going to be. I thought the inmates were. going to be like just mean and I thought they were going to be like the hardest part of the job and they actually weren't they were actually probably the easiest so that was probably the most surprising did you ever question why you took the job like as the years went by where you're like what am I

doing here like I should have stayed you know as a dental assistant or maybe thought of doing something else yeah yeah definitely it didn't take too long to realize that um Yeah, when I first started, like I said, I was like very hesitant to go into the job at first anyways. And I had told myself, all right, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to give myself two years, just two years to, you know, do some school, you know, help this pay for college, continue my education while I'm working at the prison. My goal was to like work graveyard shift the whole time so that I could do school during the day and be a mom during the day. work out that way. And no sleep. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't realize that. I learned that pretty quickly

to move shifts. But that was a goal in the beginning. But I did tell myself two years no more than that. And then throughout my time working there, like, yeah, I was like, okay, so this is why the turnover rate is so high. Like, this job sucks. And I realize, like, this is not the job for me, but it's what's paying my bills right now. you know, at this point I'm a single mom and I have, you know, a child who has now has special needs, you know, medications I have to buy. I had really good insurance, I'll say that. But still, like, you have co-pays and things like that. And on top of schooling and everything, I was just kind of stuck there. I did look into other things. I applied with, like, some police, police law enforcement. Luckily, never worked out because I never really wanted. I never really

wanted to go that route anyways. Yeah, I just totally destroyed your goals. Yeah. Although you could have probably went to the military from there. I did, yeah, I did try one more time. So when I tried the first time after high school and when I didn't score as high on the as-vap as I wanted to, I didn't have my son yet. And then later on, when I tried again, I had my son.

and I was a single mom. Like I said, his biological father, his rights are severed. So I'm the sole person parent for him, guardian. And the military told me that in order to join, I'd have to sign away in my custody of my son. And that was just something I wasn't willing to do. But I did try again. I never gave up on that one.

And that is probably one of my biggest life regrets. I should have just joined right out of high school, whether I scored high enough on the AzVap or not. But my life would be completely different, I guess, if I had. As a female officer, would you search male in me too and do the whole squat and cough search or no? No, no, no. They weren't allowed to do any of that. No, we're not allowed to do none of that. Okay.

I did have to do a strip search on a female one time, though. Okay. Yeah, we had a violator, a female violator, come to. the facility. And it was just such a random thing because I just got to shift. And I'm just settling down, putting my bag away and everything. And my sergeant calls me on the phone. And she's like, hey, I need you to pack up. I'm like, what? I just unpacked. And she's like, you're going to do a transport. I'm like, okay. And I'm thinking it's just like a medical transport to the hospital or something and she's like you're the only female female officer on the yard right now or on the

complex right now that can go and do this and I'm like okay and she's like you're going to drive this violator up to Perryville which is up here in Phoenix and I was down in Tucson it's like a two hour drive and she's like they need you to go up to complex now so you can do the strip search and I'm like strip search you've never done one before like they kind of told us how to do it in the academy but we'd never never done it so So, yeah, that was an interesting experience. Luckily, the violator, the female, she just knew what to do. She was a professional.

Yeah. I was like, all right, cool. I think we're good. So I don't see anything. That's funny. So you would end up marrying your husband now was an inmate at that facility while you were there. He was an inmate there. Yeah.

Okay. Tell us about that. Yeah, I never saw that coming, literally. Yeah, like when you think about it now and you think about the first. day you met him because like sometimes you know you hear these love stories you know you're going to marry that person on the first day you meet them or what or whatever it was you know yeah what was your first impression to him because you met him in an entirely different setting entirely different it was never anything like that I guess our story doesn't start with love at first

sight at all um to me he was just you know just another inmate um he I did notice that he was very uh polite, respectful, but not like overly. You could tell that he had been to higher yards because of his interactions with the, with the COs. They were very short. Like he wasn't the kind of inmate. There's like two different kinds of inmates. There's some that are extra friendly that will just sit there and talk to the guards all day long.

And then there's the other inmates who have been to higher yards and they don't want to talk to the guards because it could. look suspicious to, you know, the other inmates. And he was more on that line. Like he wasn't trying to talk to the guards. He would just go get what he needed, get his questions answered, and then go. So he was always just very, never had any issues with him. I knew of him.

I didn't really, like, know who he was. I couldn't remember his name. I just knew, like, his face. And I knew that he was just very, you know, polite. but that's all I knew of him. Were you attracted to him? No, I didn't. It's really hard to explain this, but I didn't see past the orange.

Like you just see the orange and then nothing more. Like you don't like go into detail of the inmates like facial features or their body. Nothing like that. Like you just see orange and that's it. And I guess also he didn't open that door too. True. Yeah. It's different as well.

Yeah. Like I said, I just didn't look at it. at him that way in any way, shape or form. He was just another inmate. I do remember one time he has said he was getting released and he was like mailing some stuff out, like sending some books away or something like that because I was in charge of property. I had been, I had a promoted position after a couple of years of working there where I was milling property. And so he had brought up like a box of books or something that he was milling out.

And he had told me he's getting released, so he had to mill these home. And I was like, oh, okay, that's cool. And I think just, you know, casual conversation or whatever, I said, like, oh, what are your plans when you get out or something like that? Like, you know, COs sometimes ask, you know, mates out. And they'll, like, tell them like, hey, you know, you better stay out. Don't come back. You know, just being like, trying to be, like, good role models, I guess.

And he had said, like, oh, I'm just going to, you know, get out and be with my daughter. And I remember looking at him like, daughter. Like I thought he was really young. He looked really young. And I told him that. I remember saying, you don't look old enough to have a daughter. And he told me like his daughter was such and such years old. And that he was, I can't remember.

I think he said he was like 25 or something like that. And I'm like, oh, shoot, this kid's older than me. I thought that he was younger than me. And that shocked me, but that was like one of the few, very few conversations we had. We didn't really like talk much. That was one of our good interactions. There wasn't always good ones. Well, let him tell the bad one.

Yeah, let him tell that one. How long was he there for while you were there? At that yard, he was there for about. a year. It's crazy to think that you were there for a year in the same roof, same bill, and basically living the same life, just different perspectives. Yeah. And now you guys are married.

Yeah, I know. It's crazy. I think about that sometimes. Like, we'll joke around about it and stuff. Like, it's just so weird. Like, all that time, he was right there and I just never would have guessed. Life is so crazy. Really?

You could have paid me like a million dollars to guess. Yeah. And I would never. could not see that coming in any way. So why do you end up leaving? I just hated it so much. I got to almost three years. My three years was approaching.

And then so here in Arizona, I don't know if they still do it this way, but back then. How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up?

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They'd move them to another yard. And this was to help officers from getting compromised or getting too comfortable at one yard. So it was called the three-year rotation. Mine was approaching. And somebody had told me that. They're like, oh, what are you going to do when you go back to? to graveyard shift, you know, and lose your mill and property position, you know, that's happening here soon.

I'm like, what? I'm like, yeah, your three-year rotations coming up. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, it hit me. Like, okay, one, like, I don't want to go back to graveyard shift. Like, that sucks. And then two, wow, I've been here almost three years. I told myself only two years.

And that was, you know, long. I just hadn't realized. I just hadn't realized the time had passed that much. And I wasn't happy. I was very unhappy. I was broke. The CEOs do not make a lot of money. I don't know what they make now. I know they're trying to keep COs. So they have bumped the pay up from then, obviously, and then with inflation. But back then it was just wasn't for a single mom anyways. It was just not a lot. How much are you making? Like 16 bucks an hour. That's crappy. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Did you work a lot of overtime? Yes, yes, a lot. Luckily, I had family that helped me with my son for, you know, babysitting and whatnot. So that was very, very helpful. And it allowed me to do a lot of overtime.

It just sucked because I was like always working. I didn't get to spend a lot of time with my son. And then he had a lot of doctor's appointments. So it was like not much time to do anything. Like I'd go home. I'd sleep. wake up, go back to prison, work again. Yeah, it's basically like you're doing the bid too.

Yeah, yeah. Like you're in prison yourself. Yep. Yeah, it sucked. And then Sundays, I always made sure I had Sundays off to go to church. So that was good. That was like my only, like, big thing was I just want to make sure I am able to go to church. And that's, I guess, spoiler alert.

That's where I met Michael. when he got released. How long after since you had left the job and he got released from prison, did you guys meet? I had left, I think, like, seven months before, something like that. I had already, like, way moved on from prison. Like, I wasn't even really thinking about it anymore. It was just like a thing of the past, I guess. And how long had he been out for?

Like a week. Oh, he had only been out a week? Yeah, he had just gotten out. Wow. So you run into him at church. What happens? we kind of like made eye contact and like um it's kind of just like when you like see someone in a crowd that you recognize like you look for a second and like we both realize like hey we know each other

and then it took like a second for it to hit me like who he was and like oh yeah yeah that's that inmate and um and this happened you know often i would run into inmates all the time um because like i said tucson's pretty small so uh he yeah we just kind of like walked up to each other we weren't like far apart We're probably like as far apart you and I are right now. And he said, hey. And I said, hey. I was like, you're out. And he was like, yeah.

He's like, do you remember me? And I said, yeah. And he was like, yeah, I just got out. I think he had said last week or something. It was very recently. And I was like, that's cool. Awesome. You know, how have you been since you got out?

What are your plans? And he had told me like, yeah, I got a car. I got a job. Like I got this, this, this, this. I'm like, whoa. Dang. Like, okay. And I was like, well, that's good. I'm glad to see you're out. And he was like, yeah. And he said, I'm going to go get some pizza with my daughter. He had his daughter with him. And he's like, do you want to go with me? And I had my son. And I was like, yeah. Yeah. Let's go. So we went to Peter Piper Pizza and the kids played in the little play area. And we just talked. And it was just shocking. Like, he was just shocking. he's not anything like how I had known him or had ever predicted him to be. He was so surprisingly, like, smart and just because I didn't know much about him.

I'm not saying, like, I thought he was dumb or anything. I just didn't know much about him. He just was different than what I expected. He was, like, really smart, like, really smart. Like, that meant, like, a genius. And he was just really motivated and just really positive, well-spoken. Like, it was just insane. And like his whole attitude, everything was just like, whoa, okay, hi.

What do you think is the biggest, like, lesson and takeaway from that moment you experienced is, like, the learning lesson from that? Hmm. I guess, I don't know. I guess just don't judge people on their past. Everybody, you know, has past. All of us do. There's all things that I think mistakes everybody makes that we're not proud of

but you really shouldn't judge anybody I think that's one of my biggest mistakes that I made while being a corrections officer is eventually the job does take the best of you and you become judgmental and you do start feeling like you're a little superior to the inmates I think going into the job I didn't feel that way

but towards the end I did start to feel that way and that was another reason too why I felt it was time for me to go. It's like this is just not I you know not I remember my mom told me this one time she had said uh this was when I had been a CEO for a couple years she said you can't talk to us like we're inmates don't be so mean she's like this job has turned you really mean and I was like dang did it I thought about I was like dang yeah she's probably right like I was starting to bring my CEO persona home with me. And yeah, he's just started turning me a little, a little uglier than I think I think I should have been. Well, Michael brought the light back on. Yeah, definitely. Are you happy you

left? So happy. Yep. One of the best decisions I ever made. I don't say I regret doing the job. I learned a lot. I met really good people. My husband being one of them. It was definitely an experience, so I don't regret it at all. But you have a beautiful family and home now. Thank you. A bunch of dogs. It's like a zoo over here. We used to have much more animals, too.

That's so cool. Some exotic pets we had before. Yeah. Well, I love the little family you guys have created. And, you know, thank you for inviting me into your home today to sit down with you and sharing your story. I love your story from the first time I saw your TikTok. I thought that was so cool. Thank you.

And I'm sure most people think you are like a corrupt guard. And I think it's cool to see that you weren't. And that, you know, it's so important giving people like a second chance. And, you know, sometimes we find opportunity that changes the rest of our life in the most unlikely places. But you got to be willing to accept that. Because you could have very well closed that off when you saw him and had that mentality of, oh, he's like a felon or this and that. Right. You know, that would be the end of it.

But you gave it a chance. Something in your mind said, let me go get that. that slice of pizza. And it was probably the best slice of pizza you ever would have in your life. Yeah, looking back now, like, that was probably the best decision I ever made. Yeah, he's a good guy, you know, just meeting with him and being in the car, like, he's just a nice person, you know. He really is. There's not that many people out like that these days. And he's smart. He's super smart and he picks up knowledge. Yeah. So you got to keep her right there. Definitely. Well, thanks again so much. And, you know, I wish you the best. Yeah, of course. And, you know,

keep making content doing what you guys are doing we'll do thank you it's an honor to be on your channel absolutely thanks