Icecreamgate

Icecreamgate

 “Did they take anything Mr. Isaac?” “Luckily, I keep the alcohol locked in this room behind the steel door, but they did take some of the beer.” Isaac arrived this morning to find thieves had broken into the bar and stolen some of his inventory. “I think it was kids, and they only took what they could carry Pablo.” “I agree, otherwise they would have taken more. Do you have insurance?” “Yes, but even with a low deductible, a claim would raise my premiums.” Officer Pablo takes a few pictures and notes, then heads toward the door. “I will see what I can find out Mr. Isaac.”

 Moments later, Melissa comes through the front doorway, and is distraught. “Isaac! We need your help!” The young lady is upset, and in need of assistance. “It’s Carter, he got himself in trouble last night, and the Police have thrown him in jail!” Moments later, Jake catches up to his friend as he trips on the threshold coming through the doorway. “Careful Jake!” Isaac of course is dealing with his own problems, but decides to put them aside for now, as he always does when someone else needs his help. “Alright, calm down kids, it’ll be fine.” Isaac finishes putting the fruit juices in the fridge, and then starts to head for the door. “Let’s go see what we can do.” As the three step out of the bar, Isaac locks the door behind him, and flips over the ‘Closed’ sign.

20 minutes later...

 “Buenos días Señor Isaac. What can I do for you today?” “Buen día Miguel, cómo es tu familia?” “He knows the Police Melissa!” “Are you kidding me? This is great.” Isaac and the officer chat in Spanish for a few moments. “They seem to be friends Jake.” “I know, this is perfect.” A few minutes later, the officer takes the key ring from the wall, and beckons Isaac and his friends to follow.

 “Mr. Carter, it appears you have some visitors.” The officer unlocks the cell door, and motions Carter to follow him down the hall, and into an interview room where his friends are waiting. “Carter! Are you okay?” Melissa rushes over to give her friend a hug. “Just a minute, we need to talk about last night.” Officer Miguel steps in between the two, and they all take a seat at the table.

 “Mr. Carter, what you did was not appropriate on our Island, and the next time you have to go to the bathroom, you cannot use a tree in the town square.” “I’m sorry officer.” “Alright, I will let you go without a fine, but only because you are a friend of Mr. Isaac.” 

 As the students and their mentor are walking toward the door, Isaac stops and turns. “Did I ever tell you about the time I worked in jail?” “Oh no! Not now Isaac.” Melissa whispers to Jake. “Let me tell you about Icecreamgate.” Melissa shakes her head, as the group make their way back into the room and take a seat.

 “I was working as a finance officer in a medium security prison, and the inmates had a canteen; they could buy pop, chips, chocolate bars, and various other snack items. Some of them lived off the canteen because the food was awful.” “Then don’t go to jail.” Carter is the one to talk! “During the summer, they would sell ice cream cones at the store, but did this out of a special fund-raising account.” “Fund-raising? For what.” “Well you see Jake, the inmates were allowed to have social activities, and sometimes their family could participate when they came to visit.” “Nice jail.” “Socializing and having family visit was an important part of the reintegration agenda Carter; they all get out some time, and in many cases, move next door.” “I hope not!” Jake and Carter laugh at Melissa. “Anyway, they had these two guys, they were in for racketeering.” “Of course they were.” Miguel has seen his share of criminals. “Well, these two guys were given the job of managing the ice cream shop. They had to order tubs of ice cream and cones, ensure they had napkins, and keep track of who got what, which they did on cards in a rolodex.” “Rolodex! What’s that?” “Little cards attached to a rotating frame Melissa; each one had the inmate’s name, when and how much they put on the card, and when they bought a cone.” “I suppose computers were out of the question?” “No, they had them for the main canteen, but not for this account.”

 “One day, the Assistant Warden came to me with a kite.” “Kite?” “A piece of paper given to a staff member anonymously ratting someone out Jake.” “Nice terminology Isaac.” Isaac smiles, then continues with the story. “The kite said the two guys who were running the account were stealing from it, and I was asked to do an audit.” “You’re kidding me? This was Icecreamgate?” The others laugh at Isaac. “Oh yes, this was my claim to fame Melissa.” Two more Police Officers have joined the group for the story.

 “We started out by looking at the opening inventory from the beginning of the season, which was zero of course. We added up the purchases, subtracted the ending inventory, and came up with what should have been the number of units sold. Of course, they sold cones not 5-gallon buckets, so we had to convert everything to cones.” “Oh my God, you didn’t?” “Yes we did Melissa, we took a brand new pale of ice cream, and counted out the number of scoops.” Everyone laughs once again. “How many?” “I can’t remember Miguel, that was years ago. But what I do remember ironically, is when we compared to the sales records, we were short 30 pales of ice cream at a cost of $35 each.” “$1,000!... of Ice cream?” “That’s right Jake.” “Now there’s a scandal.” One of the officers weighs in. “Okay, so how did you determine how many were sold versus consumed?” “From the rolodex Carter, and the canteen transfers to the cards; here we did have an opening balance from unused credits at the beginning of the season, plus amounts added, less the closing balance.” “There you have it, units sold per revenue records versus the units consumed.” “Precisely Melissa, see how easy auditing is?”

 The students are dumfounded, as they never imaged during their four years of training, they would have to count scoops of ice cream, let alone work in a jail. “Are you saying they ate all this ice cream without paying for it?” “Not at all, you see in the jail the inmates are not allowed to have money; instead, they use other commodities to barter.” “Like what.” “For example, the head of the ice cream club smoked a particular brand of pipe tobacco.” “They could smoke!” “At that time yes Melissa.” “Wow!” “This inmate always had a package of this tobacco, yet he never bought any according to the canteen system.” “So people would buy the tobacco for him and trade it for ice cream.” “Precisely Jake.”

 “So what happened to these guys?” “Well at first Jake, they claimed they were giving ice-cream to the children during Sunday visits.” “Of course, the children!” Carter is starting to get over his fear of the jail. “But the funny thing was, not one staff member who worked at the visits area, remembers ice-cream cones being given away.” The officers, who find the humour in this due to their experiences with criminals, are laughing so hard, one of them has to leave the room to go to the bathroom. “Okay, so what happened to these guys Isaac?” “They both got sent to the Maximum-Security jail in the next town.” “What? Seriously.” “Yes Jake, they got Maxed!” Now even Officer Miguel is laughing. “But it didn’t end there; a week later the same Assistant Warden came to me about concerns with the Fried Chicken account.” “Chickengate!?” “Yeah, well Carter, I kicked him out of my office!”

 “That wasn’t the end of the story though; three years later, I was now working at the Minimum-Security institution, when one day I crossed paths with one of the guys. Of course, during the three years I was fearing for my life as her was a mobster.” Miguel chuckles. “As we pass each other, we both nod.” “That’s it?” “Not quite Melissa; you see, he gets four steps past me, when I hear him call out from behind me: Thought you had me with that ice cream thing hey!”

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