THE GREEN (with envy) MILE

As you may have already gathered, my husband is in the military — the Air Force to be exact. But we currently live on an Army Post in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Yup. THAT Leavenworth.

I knew nothing about Leavenworth when we moved here except that they had some prisons — both a federal one and the military one on post. Also, I knew that we were probably as far away from a beach as you can get in the good ‘ole U.S. of A. Unless you enjoy waterless beaches, which I do not. And after his time in the Middle East, neither does my husband.

I have learned in the course of nearly one year here that Leavenworth is actually a lovely town with awesome antique stores, friendly people, a dentist’s office I want to visit daily, and at least one extra-attentive Parking Enforcement Officer.

I’m not bitter…

Anyhow, I stepped outside our house on post last Friday evening at 10:30 p.m. to go for a quick jog.

(Did she say 10:30…in the EVENING?)

The vampires keep me company.

I was no more than three steps down our driveway before I heard this:

Attention in the camp. Attention in the camp. Date night, chow hall only. Date night…chow hall only.

First, I thought to myself,

Huh. Crazy how clearly those federal prison announcements are from right here in our front yard.

(I took this photo from inside our house. Do you see that brick chimney thing in the not-so-distant distance? That’s the prison yard.)

The second thought I had was,

Huh. I sure hope that razor wire is pretty thick.

And the THIRD thing I thought was,

Huh…WAIT! They get a DATE NIGHT?

And then, to tell you the truth, I got a bit irritated.

Do you mean to tell me that these prisoners have a date night? And that the taxpayers fund it?

I got so irritated that I managed to work up a pretty good sweat on my one mile trot around the neighborhood.

I got back inside our house approximately 34 minutes later, promptly threw up in the kitchen sink, and managed to tell Brian all about the announcement — once I was able to breathe again. (Sometimes I wish these things weren’t true.)

I’m not much of a runner.

But lucky for Brian, I am a pretty persistent storyteller. Despite my windedness I was extremely animated about my displeasure with this whole prison date night idea.

Whatever happened to federally funded date nights for parents of toddlers?

WHY are we — honest, taxpaying, and non-lawbreaking citizens (no comments about the Parking Enforcement Officer, please) — funding DATE NIGHTS for prisoners?!?!?

As I shared my frustrations with him, I could see the wheels in Brian’s head turning. They’re the same wheels that turn any time I get animated about something. They’re the “maybe there is another explanation other than the most dramatic one” wheels.

I hate those wheels.

In fairness, Brian had a reasonable and much less dramatic possibility. Maybe instead of a federally funded conjugal free-for-all, the prison had a movie screening of the 2011 film “Date Night” starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey. And that this screening probably took place in the chow hall.

I thought about it for a minute.

Yeah. He’s probably right. That makes more sense.

But then I got irritated again.

I never even got to see that movie!

So, if you read about a girl trying to pole vault over razor wire so she can break into Leavenworth Federal Pen, you should probably call my husband and tell him he should take me to movies more often.