At the courthouse where I work, the maintenance man is often helped out by prisoners who are called "trustees." They help with heavy lifting and the jobs that nobody else wants to do, like cleaning toilets, and they come to work wearing black-and-white striped prison jumpsuits. Sometimes, a former trustee will come back for a visit to say hello, and it's always kind of weird to see them in street clothes after looking at them in the jumpsuit for so long. Once, a co-worker and I were shopping on our lunch break, and we ran into a former (male) trustee in the store. We'd all liked him and gotten to know him because sometimes, on slow afternoons, he would come in to chat and joke around and make us laugh. I recognized him and waved, but my co-worker didn't--she kept giving him the "don't I know you?" look. He finally walked over and said:
T: Miss X, don't you remember me?
CW: You look familiar.
T: I used to come by your office all the time. Remember? You always said I put a smile on your face on those slow afternoons.
CW: Oh, YEAH! I didn't recognize you at first, because this is the first time I've ever seen you wearing CLOTHES!
It took me the rest of lunch break to calm down. For the rest of the afternoon, I could barely even look at CW because I'd start giggling again.
