A couple of weeks ago I told how some druggies were next to me smoking deuce & I watched carefully to see how they smoked it since we don’t have lighters or matches in prison. They took a paperclip that had been narrowed down to a smaller diameter in middle. They then held one end of the paperclip to a AA battery and the other end to the opposing side of the battery. The smaller diameter “filament” got red hot and lit the fires. They were holding the paperclip with their fingernails and some other insulative things to avoid burning their fingers. I thought this was quite ingenious for guys burning their brains out on drugs. I just heard this evening that one battery will give about four smokes because you are basically shorting out the battery to get it to light anything.
When I came back to work last Friday after being sick, I found out one guy had gotten fired and the other quit to “check himself into the SHU.” I could not imagine any reason why someone would check themselves into solitary (I think you might actually share a very small cell with someone) & asked around about it. There are two reasons: 1) You owe somebody some money and you check in to avoid getting beat up for it or 2) You are pushing for a transfer and they will eventually transfer you somewhere after keeping you there for 5-6 months. The first reason is by far the usual one.
This week will be the first week I don’t go to commissary to get anything. After being here for three months, I now have enough soap, tuna, peanut butter, crackers, etc. built up as inventory that I don’t need to go so often. That makes things easier for me.
I found a couple books on my list in the library and was happy to find them and check them out. One is the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne that I think I read in high school. Let’s see if I get more out of it the second time around. The other one is “Man in the Iron Mask” by Alexander Dumas. I saw the movie – let’s see how different it is. Just about done with Moby Dick. Thank God – I did not enjoy that book at all.
Someone sent me two books last week. I don’t know who it was, but the books were “Walking His Trail” & “End of the Spear,” both by Steve Saint.
Lastly, someone asked about how our bathroom works. There are 8 different units here and each one is different. But for Bluegrass Unit, we have communal bathrooms down the hall. Each bathroom has 1 toilet with a door, 1 urinal, 1 or 2 showers with curtains, and usually three sinks at varying heights. If you want to take a shower and someone is in there, you can hang your towel on the hook, which reserves you as the next person. There is also a shelf you can put your towel on, which puts you in second place behind the guy with his towel on the hook. You also need to tell the guy in the shower who you are and where you are in the line-up so he can pass on the message. The showers are always warm, but if you are someone who likes really hot showers, you will be disappointed.
The two bathrooms on our alley serve about 50 people.
