From Dragonfly: Inspection!

Every week, each housing unit is inspected for cleanliness and following the rules. Are the beds made correctly? Is there dust on the window sill? Are the shoes properly lined up against the wall? Has the floor been swept and mopped? Are the bathrooms clean? Have the showers been scrubbed? Are the trash cans emptied? There are a lot of items they look at. Yesterday, I was in my room laying down when suddenly I heard a loud scream, "inspection!!!" Everyone in the unit jumped to their feet and started to clean and ensure that everything was exactly as it should be. The benefits of being one of the cleaner units is that the unit is called to meals quicker - getting to commissary quicker, etc. Units are called in the order of their prior week's cleanliness. If your room is one of the reasons the unit loses points, the residents of that room are given extra duty - cleaning not only their room, but throughout the unit. Every night, there are women cleaning the walls, windows, floors, tables, etc. My room has a disadvantage - more people = more mess. There are only two rooms in the entire place with more than 4 inmates and I happen to be in one of them. Of course, this resulted in, yet, another argument. Thank goodness it was not put towards me this time. I don't even think it was about the cleaning. It was about politics, I think (I was writing at the time on my bunk and trying to ignore everyone and everything around me). Anyway, one woman starts screaming at the other woman and next thing you know one has stripped down to her bra and the two of them are about to box. I walked out of the room. That is what I do when people are being angry or unreasonable, I take myself out of the situation. I wish more people around here would do that. The two women had to go to the Lieutenants office for talking before an actual fight broke out. The sad thing about the situation is that the 5 of us remaining in the room at the time were like, "okay, they have better mattresses...," if they go to the SHU, who gets what mattress. Priorities in prison are about comfort and access to the better things. Neither was sent to the SHU - no one gets a fancy mattress. I decided that the best mattress should go to a woman in our room who is 66 years old and has almost no meat on her spine. She needs the comfort more than any of us. Others agreed. But, she will have to wait. Amazing what little things can result in big fights here on the compound. The craziest thing about all this is that inspection did not even occur yesterday. The inspector went off to lunch and never came back. Inspection was this morning. Less than half the number of people were in the unit and neither of the two roommates were there at the time. Thank goodness. Just in case, though, I listened for "open move," and took myself to the computer lab. I think I will avoid all days of, "Inspection!!"