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In honor of this week’s SPRUNG writing prompt, we decided to ask our staff writers a question:

If you were in jail and trying to break out, what would be your basic method for getting SPRUNG?

Read along to see how we’re busting out of this joint. And join in the conversation on Twitter to share your path to freedom.


Erin Vail

First, let me say—I’m obviously in jail for a crime I didn’t commit. That being said, I would slowly and subtly gaslight the guards and emotionally manipulate them into letting me go. It’s all about the mind games, baby!

Josh Bard

This is all about famous basketball halftime acts. I spend months before going into the clink with the human contortionist—you know, the guy who can put his entire body through an unstrung tennis racket? I learn tips and tricks for manipulating the small openings in jail doors and windows. Then, I take my expertise in jumping from the trampoline dunkers so that I can leap up (AND DOWN!) from heights. Finally, when I’m on the outside, I need the quick-change couple to help me change my look on the fly.

So, the guards think they’re looking for a guy in an orange jumpsuit. Well, here I am in a tuxedo, so there’s no way I could be your fugitive. And now I’m in a a blue polka dot dress and halfway to Mexico!

Zach Straus

Step 1) Get one of those rap guys’ girlfriends.

Step 2) Dress her so she looks like a total prostitute, ‘kay?

Step 3a) Double-check that her butt is just so big.

Step 3b) To the point you can’t believe it’s just so round, it’s like out there.

Step 4) Ensure other brothers can’t deny.

Step 5) Walk her in with an itty bitty waist.

Step 6) Put a round thing in your face.

Step 7) You get sprung.

Ryan Fay

I’d either meditate, to slow my heart rate until it mimics a flatline, or seduce my way out. Honestly though, I’d just do the time. It’s probably real hard to get a case of the Mondays when you don’t have a job to go to. Sounds like a win to me.

Shalen Lowell

I second Ryan’s ideas, but depends on how long I’m in for. My life has been bananas these days, so I could use a week or two of solace in the slammer. But if I was in there for longer, I would 100 percent fake a heart attack or something and pull a Hannibal Lecter (without the people-eating) and escape from the ambulance.

Dennis William

Am I a millionaire, or do I know any? If so, then:

Step 1: Invest in for-profit prisons.

Step 2: Purchase the prison I am being held in.

Step 3: Install a puppet CEO.

Step 4: Puppet CEO directs the construction of an escape tunnel under the guise of a new HVAC system (El Chapo style).

Step 5: Then, invest in big pharma.

Step 6: Invent/patent the new crack cocaine.

Step 7: Distribute Gentrifyzidal to urban areas.

Step 8: Form a shell real estate company.

Step 9: Buy up whole blocks of neighborhoods ravaged by Gentrifyzidal.

Step 10: Profit.

The Prompt Staff

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