From Dragonfly: I' m Here For My Time Only...Aug 24

I am currently rooming in the  "Bus Stop", a room with 7 beds and mostly houses people who have been in trouble or are new. One of my roommies is a young woman, here for a drug related offense, and still has the desire to be young and crazy. She is very nice and smart, but has many moments of defying rules, acting out, and just having too much energy for being in tight quarters. She finds herself getting in trouble and talking back to C.O.'s quite often. It blows my mind that people just can't keep themselves calm, still, and especially keep the swear words from exiting their mouth at the correction officers.

When an inmate is getting in trouble, the first thing an officer usually does is search their locker. An inmate cannot have anything in their locker that they did not purchase or was not given to them by the institution. However, inmates exchange and give things all the time. Its crazy. I think only two of us in my room have only what is regulation in our lockers. Anyway, this roommate went off on an officer and he was heading straight to her locker ( the lock s have a combination, but all the officers have a master key to open them anytime). She knew she would be busted for tons of unallowed items, so she started throwing them all over the room, so they wouldn't be in her locker. Other roomies started helping her by putting her locker contents in their lockers. As he was still coming up the stairs, she started throwing her food out of her locker onto my bed just passed my head. I jumped up and went to another person's bed. The CO came into my room, saw the mess, noo he would not find anything worthwhile, and put her on extra duty. Meanwhile, I moved all the stuff off my bed. Some of my roommates said to me, "We have to look out for our roommates." Without thinking I just said, "I am here to do my time, not everyone elses." I don't think I made any friends at that moment, but I got my point across. I may look gullible and easy to use, but I will say "no" every time.

This morning my roommates informed me that I could get off my cot mattress and get a real mattress in the hallway by the elevator. The hallway is next to my room and off limits unless you have an elevator pass. I do not. The door is open, so you can see a pile of mattresses there. My roommates were telling me to put a second little mattress on my bed or see if one of the real mattresses were there (they all have real mattresses, I have one that feels like sleeping on wood). I refused. They called me loco and told me I was in prison and I needed to take care of myself. I, instead, went downstairs to the C.O. and told him about my mattress and the extras in the hall. I said that I was encouraged to just grab a new one, but wouldn't do so without permission. He told me he would make sure I get a new mattress this week. This is the right way to do things. Even if I do not get a new mattress, the C.O. knows I am a rule follower. I do not tell on anyone. I give no names and will not be a tattle. But, I will not give the C.O. any reason to question my intent to just do my time and go home to the people who love and care about me.