1) There are lots of side-hustles here in prison that guys who don’t have help from the outside do so that they can get money to buy things in commissary, etc. You can get a guy to do your laundry for 2 books of stamps per month ($16 market value) and it will come back folded up and it will not have been washed with anyone else’s stuff. One guy will repair things for you for money (he repaired a tablet for a guy today for $50), build locker storage shelves out of cardboard to give you another shelf, etc. There are bookies here doing their thing and druggies getting drugs, so there are obviously drug dealers as well. In fact, one just sat down at the computer next to me as I was typing this email.
2) This coming Sunday evening, the two guys that I do crossword puzzles with & I will do a Nacho Grande night. We bought some Doritos, cheese, pepporoni, ground up spicy pork, peppers and giardanara. We got a guy who will “cater” it for us if he gets 1/4 of it. None of us drink pop regularly, but we all agreed we will drink a pop that day as part of our little party.
3) There are lots of guys who buy a bunch of food at commissary or get stolen food from the kitchen and cook up nice meals for themselves – usually in the evening & on the weekends. I always eat lunch & dinner at the chow hall. I think I skipped 2 meals and the couple other times I didn’t go I ate soup or ramen noodles in my cell. I tend not to go for breakfast as I can eat my 1.3 ounces of oatmeal in my room and then use the computer to do emails while people are at breakfast. The only thing I miss by not going to breakfast is the two little boxes of milk and a fruit cup. They get oatmeal or grits with the milk & fruit and I can get oatmeal in the comfort of my own room in one minute as opposed to waiting for about 20 minutes for the call to go to breakfast, plus walking there and back. It gives me a little bit more control over my day.
4) Most of the guys in my unit are very clean. They shower every day or at least every other day. They keep their area tidy, brush their teeth and even take a spray bottle with soapy water into the toilets with them to make sure it is clean before & after they leave. About a week ago, a guy from another floor left a nasty mess in one of the toilets and some guys ran him down and made him come back & clean it. Our hallways get swept & mopped every few days and we clean our cell (sweep & mop) every Sunday on a rotating schedule.
5) Obviously, everyone is very excited about the NCAA college basketball play-offs. There will be a couple games going at any one time on the TV’s and people listening in their cells on their radios. On the weekends, there are set programs that guys listen to religiously – especially on NPR.
6) I think I have mentioned before that the guards do a count at 9 pm before we go to bed. They also come in and shine flashlights on us to do their counts at midnight, 3 am & 5 am. If you are sleeping good, you don’t notice it. They also do “random” checks on several rooms every couple days – checking for contraband. Funny that they usually check the nicest, most clean guys possible – somehow bypassing the rooms of the known bad guys. If they check a clean guys room and don’t find anything (which they wouldn’t because he is clean), then they don’t have to do any paperwork or extra work. If they catch someone with something bad, they have to do paperwork, move him to the SHU, etc. Interestingly enough, when I got back from work yesterday, I saw what looked like old fruit dumped on the catch basin outside the main entry door. Later that night I heard a guy got caught with his homemade hooch – which explains where the nastly looking fruit came from. Some dude got his prison alcohol dumped down the drain. We heard a guy went to the SHU, but not sure if it was him or someone else and whether it was for the hooch or a bad urine test result.
7) Currently reading “A Gentleman in Moscow” and when I am done with that, I will start reading “Benjamin Franklin” by Walter Isaacson. Still doing my exercise routine and reading a passage from the Daily Stoic every morning.
Cheers,
Dennis Zeedyk
