You know you are keeping it real while in prison when:
1. You wait in the pill line for 40 minutes and the guards close the chow hall before you get to eat. It is unfortunately true, many inmates have to take pills before dinner. These pills are usually addictive in nature so the compound only gives them out before dinner and each inmate must show their id so the pharmacist knows what to give each inmate. There are 1000 inmates here. Over 200 probably wait in the pill line each night. There is usually only 1 pharmacist running the line and a guard watching the inmate swallow the pill with water that is provided. Since it takes so long for the line to get through, many of them have shortened times to eat or totally miss it. The guards at the chow hall which is only a few steps away simply do not care.
2. Commissary runs out of hemorrhoid cream so your bunkmate uses athletes foot cream instead. It actually worked shockingly.
3. You have to cut up boxes and use shoe laces to add shelves to your locker.
4. You can buy a hand cranked portable radio, but not a battery operated one.
5. In the TV room, there are 8 TV’s and about 80 chairs. Even when only 10 chairs are being used, the other 70 are clearly empty you still have to ask if it is ok to sit down. Totally true, you never know if you are going to be sitting in someone else’s seat that is not there.
6. You get so used to being patted down leaving chow hall that you will miss it when leaving a restaurant once back home.
7. Your prison sentence is so long that your clothes at home will be back in style. Unfortunately, several inmates have sentences over 15 years.
8. You hear keys jingle, you stop and make sure you are not doing anything wrong.
9. You get excited when you get a zip lock bag from your medicine pickup since most people do not get them. Some use the bags for cookies or other goodies they make.
10. You get pulled out of line by a guard at a place to take an alcohol breathalyzer test. True story, apparently the guards have to randomly test 10 people each time to show their power over you. So they tested me with 9 others on our way back from church service. Apparently they were checking to see if we had Jesus juice. hehe
Hope you guys enjoyed those.