A reader commented privately that my posts of the last few days have been "whiney". Far be it from me to bring you, dear reader, down with tales of my prison woes. It is after all prison and like Jesus said, "when someone does something wrong, they must suffer." I guess Jesus did not say that but based on how all the people who name Jesus as their number one philosopher act, they sure think he meant it.
So some light-hearted fare on this fine Friday. In case you find yourself in a Work Release prison (as one of the other inmates observed, at the rate the prison population in the USA is growing, half of us are going to be guarding the other half before too long), this information may be useful to you.
Brenda and I have our routine down, and I mean down. I've stopped into the house a few times to get the mail, retrieve a few things, adjust the thermostat, etc. But I'm not living there: I haven't showered there, changed my clothes there, or even used my own bathroom (well, once - but still!).
But I am not really living at the prison either. As the weather has turned hotter and more humid, the smell has become awful. The cleanliness of the restrooms and showers that surprised me earlier as been replaced by the odor and discoloration of the bacteria that loves to fester where heat and humidity meet a high-density of men. As a result, I am not showering, or using the bathroom for you-know-what unless it is an emergency (the commissary doesn't sell quilted TP or bath wipes so to hell with that). I do that business at work!
So, Brenda and I are kind of living like how I would imagine a generous homeowner (Brenda) and her homeless ward (me) would live, if such a situation existed, and people actually gave a crap about the real homeless, which I am not trying to make light of.
I have my jail house clothes and my work clothes. I thought about trying to come up with some middle ground, something between business casual and formal jail house, but I really couldn't.
So at prison, in my smelly, rusted, ancient prison locker, I have a few pairs of tightey-whiteys (bought for prison - I'm a boxers kind of guy), some socks, a couple pairs of jeans, sneakers, and a collection of plain T-shirts. I did recently order some vacation attire, all linen, to wear there on Sundays to help handle the heat. So those are there too. Maybe I will burn those when this is over, or maybe I'll save them for the very expensive vacation to the very luxurious beach resort to which I damn well better take Brenda when this is all done.
Each morning I leave prison wearing the T-shirt and jeans I wore in the night before. When I get to work, I go to my locker and grab my real work clothes - the dry-clean-only stuff I certainly can't have in a jail - and my gym clothes, and then work out. At the gym at work I can use a private shower, a clean toilet, and a clean sink, before changing into my work clothes.
Brenda is driving my car, a "compact SAV", and in the back are laundry bags for darks and whites, and a basket of clean clothes. At lunch, I place the dirty jail and gym clothes into their respective laundry bags, and replenish my gym bag with clean ones. After work, I change out of my work clothes and back into my jail clothes. As the work clothes get dirty, I drop them off at our corporate dry-cleaner station.
All of the crap I traditionally carry in my pocket - chap stick, small knife, tissues, wallet, cell phone - is left in my briefcase at my desk. I leave each day with only my petty cash, bus pass, and badge.
Brenda also refreshes a supply of fresh fruit, granola bars, and vegetable snacks in the car every few days. I grab those on my way back from the gym (and freshly ground fair trade coffee, bless her sweet heart) and take them to my desk.
So, I am able to avoid the worst part of being in prison - feeling that it is my home. I am sure the bureaucrats would be enraged that I am doing this, but I am not violating the rules. I am not leaving work, and since Brenda works here too, she isn't visiting me.
Luckily at work I am considered a bit of an eccentric so wandering into the back door of my building in jeans and a T-shirt, keeping a dozen work shirts and pants in my locker, and leaving each day in a similar T-shirt and jeans outfit, has only elicited one or two humorous questions, which I easily deflect.
So, there you have it. How To Go To Prison But Not Look Or Smell Like You Are Living In One.
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2 comments:
love the blog. nice to see that you have worked out your own game. i wonder, you plan on kicking anything back to your cell mate? maybe some bye bye funds, words of encouragement?
Thanks for the kind words. Actually Derick is done before me; his sentence was only 60 days, not 90. I've been helping him out though as much as I can without insulting his pride. He offers to do both our laundry while I'm at work, so I offer to pay, and always leave some extra money. I also share the food I've bought from the commissary and get extra things for him, like coffee.
It will be interesting to see what happens when he leaves. Will I have the room to myself for the next 30 days, or will they put someone else in? While we would be unlikely to cross paths on the street, Derick and I are compatible cellmates: we are both considerate and clean, and neither of us have habits that annoy the other. Considering I might have been put in a room with someone with a body odor problem - or worse, one of the half-dozen or so people who have been moved to the infirmary due to MRSA - I count myself lucky.
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