Wednesday, September 1, 2010
SWEET NECTAR OF THE GODS
Have I mentioned that I love Kool-aid? Well, I do. I'll drink any flavor but I know being pre-diabetic having too much sugar isn't good for me. So what's a guy to do? One of the first things that you learn in the joint is that nearly everything has a price. There is a thriving under-market for anything that we can't buy off of the canteen or can be stolen from the state. The kitchen is one of the primary sources of contraband. We don't get to buy fresh produce to cook with, so we buy fresh onions, green pepper, cheese, ground beef from people willing to risk smuggling it out of food service. Lately, the DOC has been on a "health" kick so they replaced our soda that we used to get with meals with sugar-free Kool-aid. So once a week I pay about the equivalent of three stamped envelopes for a bag of drink mix the size of a small apple. The best is lemonade. The most weird is grape. Grape is the least popular because grape is like a bad party guest. You know the guy gets drunk and pukes on your deck, stumbles into things, and says the most inappropriate stuff. Grape does not play well with other flavors; if you add grape to any other flavor - it all becomes grape. Grape don't know how to act right. I used to caddy at a golf course when I was a shorty, and when we made the turn the golfer for whom you were caddying would buy a grape juice and 7-up concoction. So I got used to the flavor combo. To this day I still mix Diet Sierra Mist with my Kool-aid. Just thought that you'd like to know.
As I Was Saying Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted...
Worst Week. Ever. Part Two
So to recap: I didn't get a new job, the Powers that Be hate me, and to top it all off my cellie went to the hole. Going to segregation isn't that rare of an occurance at WCI. In fact, they lock people up at such a rate, for such petty offenses as not pulling up your pants, not tying your shoes, or (my personal favorite) not standing for count, you would think that the administration is using the disciplinary system for other means. Like as a bargaining chip when their labor union contract comes up for negotiation; i.e. if the seg unit is always full, then this must be an extraordinarily dangerous job - give us more money; the other equally cynical option is that they are using the seg unit as a defacto housing unit and keeping it full of inmates on humbug write-ups that in other joints would be dismissed, warnings, or loss of recreation. Now, I'm not here to complain about how they use their segregation unit (even though I just did); I want to talk about packing up a cellie.
Living in a 6' x 12' cell is never easy under the best circumstances. It's worse when you got years to do and nowhere to go. If you're lucky, and I was, you get a cell mate that you can "jail" with. The best cell-mates have all their own electronics, money, pull their weight when it comes to the chores, a good sense of humor, and don't snitch. So I was unhappy when my cellie got wrote up for loitering on the range, and got seg time. When you go to seg you don't get to pack your own property - it's go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. As I am familiar with this process myself *sigh* I know the value of being tight with your living mate so that none of your stuff comes up missing. So I made sure that all of his things got packed up and what not then I hunkered down to play the "Hey-what-kind-of-hump-can-I-stick-in-your-cell-lottery"! Ah, good times. As of this date I am still doing the solo thing. Knock on wood - wait, there is no wood here. Shit.
For those of you out there that care I'm doing fine. I'm not up to as many shenanigans as I used to be and that is a flippy-flop thing for me. On the one hand, the non-incarcerated people in my life are happier, but on the flip side of that it makes for a very BORING existence. I just got a 12 month defer from the program review committee (PRC), "Hey, why don't you do this program?". "Aaahh, I got yer program right here, buddy." And I'm still teaching grown felons to read, which is from time to time a surreal pleasure.
So to recap: I didn't get a new job, the Powers that Be hate me, and to top it all off my cellie went to the hole. Going to segregation isn't that rare of an occurance at WCI. In fact, they lock people up at such a rate, for such petty offenses as not pulling up your pants, not tying your shoes, or (my personal favorite) not standing for count, you would think that the administration is using the disciplinary system for other means. Like as a bargaining chip when their labor union contract comes up for negotiation; i.e. if the seg unit is always full, then this must be an extraordinarily dangerous job - give us more money; the other equally cynical option is that they are using the seg unit as a defacto housing unit and keeping it full of inmates on humbug write-ups that in other joints would be dismissed, warnings, or loss of recreation. Now, I'm not here to complain about how they use their segregation unit (even though I just did); I want to talk about packing up a cellie.
Living in a 6' x 12' cell is never easy under the best circumstances. It's worse when you got years to do and nowhere to go. If you're lucky, and I was, you get a cell mate that you can "jail" with. The best cell-mates have all their own electronics, money, pull their weight when it comes to the chores, a good sense of humor, and don't snitch. So I was unhappy when my cellie got wrote up for loitering on the range, and got seg time. When you go to seg you don't get to pack your own property - it's go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. As I am familiar with this process myself *sigh* I know the value of being tight with your living mate so that none of your stuff comes up missing. So I made sure that all of his things got packed up and what not then I hunkered down to play the "Hey-what-kind-of-hump-can-I-stick-in-your-cell-lottery"! Ah, good times. As of this date I am still doing the solo thing. Knock on wood - wait, there is no wood here. Shit.
For those of you out there that care I'm doing fine. I'm not up to as many shenanigans as I used to be and that is a flippy-flop thing for me. On the one hand, the non-incarcerated people in my life are happier, but on the flip side of that it makes for a very BORING existence. I just got a 12 month defer from the program review committee (PRC), "Hey, why don't you do this program?". "Aaahh, I got yer program right here, buddy." And I'm still teaching grown felons to read, which is from time to time a surreal pleasure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
