It ended up being worth it, after all.

Did I make a post about getting maced? Yeah, I was a while ago. Maced. For work. You might be thinking I'm crazy, volunteering to get sprayed in the face with pepper spray. But it was a pride-requirement to carry said mace as regular equipment on my belt (between my keys and radio).

Maybe I am crazy. It was, without a doubt, the worst pain I've ever experienced. Napalm, with sand mixed in it, physically rubbed all around my eyes. But I can carry it now. And it was worth it.

The other night, I worked in what is, potentially, the worst dorm at my prison. Second shift warned my partner and I that something was up, possibly a huge fight brewing. Turns out they were right.

First chance they had, two specific groups of inmates, separated by race, threw down. We estimated that there were around 40 inmates total fighting. Punches, kicks, chairs, locks on belts being swung, benches flying through the air. Imagine Braveheart, but real, and in a prison.

My partner and I got on our radios and called for assistance, ASAP. Help arrived, and we waded in, mace flying. The inmates eventually broke up, all of us shouting at them to shut up and lay on the ground. Still spraying of course. Keep in mind, what I carry is 4x stronger that what I got sprayed with. Three cans spraying, two emptied and one halfway. Problem solved for the night.

But without that can, not mine specifically, but without that can...things would have been bad and one of us probably would have been hurt. Badly.

Whats the moral of the story? Mace fucking hurts and it will make even the biggest, baddest motherfucker lay down and cry. It's no joke.