November 20, 2004
A One and A Two...
I’m happy to report that I’m finally pretty much sleeping through the night, and when I get up to pee can pretty much get back to sleep. Boy, it sure is nice not to have to climb off a top bunk, and hobble down a long hallway with your eyes half-closed. (I say hobble because I had a fairly common prison ailment of painful sensitivity of the bottoms of your feet that seems to come from sleeping high up off the floor. It dissipates after some walking, but it would be a serious impediment to getting out of there fast in a fire. It did permit me to get a prescription for Neurontin, which did nothing for the pain in my feet but has some value as an anti-anxiety med, of obvious value in the joint).
Prison is one of the worst places in the world to be pee-shy (that would be me), and the worst place in the world to be shy about doing your other business in public (that would be everybody). That’s right. No doors. It’s a pain in the obvious, made somewhat more annoying by the evident belief that seems to persist with many inmates that all manner of disease must be primarily spread via sharing toilet seats. As they meticulously line the seat with T.P., one can practically hear their Moms clucking about never knowing about what kind of "dirty" person last used the john.
Even more comical is the practice of "courtesy flushing." The idea is to flush as soon as would be feasibly indicated to reduce the propagation of unpleasant odors, but since these are industrial strength stainless steel commodes that could suck down a raccoon, guys will flush incessantly, beyond all logic, before during between and after. It’s so effortfully inoffensive that it only succeeds in drawing attention to itself, the noise alone being as irritating as any real or imagined smell.
Men being men, of course, there was the nothing-em-bare-asses-me contingent that would insist on engaging you in conversation as if you were seated next to each other at a Kiwanis dinner, and of course the this-is-just-like-my-library-at-home brigade, who would complete the latest Anne Rice while puffing on a cigarette and listening to their walkman.
I am SO happy to have a door to close again. Appreciate the little freedoms you have, my friends, lest you have to learn the hard way not to take them for granted. (Although I have the feeling I just did my part to deter an entire crime wave. "No doors! Ooohh! I could never go to prison!").
Nice weekend planned, but I think I’ll share about that separately, after the fact.
MCO 2004
