From Dragonfly: Sleeping In

At home, if we sleep through our alarm clocks, we wake up slowly, look at the time and suddenly jump to our feet knowing we are late for something. Well, the same is certainly true here in prison.

Tuesday mornings, this quarter, is my commissary shopping day. Due to my job in education, I am required to shop between 6-7am, and must be there by 6:10am in order for my sheet to be taken on the "work detail" side of the line. Work detail has their shopping first, so that we can be at work on time at 7:30am.

Last night I set my watch alarm for 5:35am. I had my clothing already out at the end of my bed. I had my full commissary sheet filled out and my grey shoulder bag ready to carry my commissary back to the unit. When 6am hit, I would be out the doors of my unit and by 6:07, I would be standing in the work detail line. I would have time to spare.

Well, today I must have turned off my alarm in my sleep, because I jumped up at the sound of the morning announcement, "attention housing inmates, male and female staff routinely work in and visit inmate housing areas." Well, that meant it was 6am. I probably slurred something bad under my breath, as I threw off my shorts and on my work pants, grabbed a hair band, my sweatshirt, my i.d., and my commissary sheet and bag, and headed for the door. It was 6:07am when I left and I was already running late.

Commissary is down in the basement of the medical/main building, next to our chow hall. It is located either at or close to where the morgue was when this was officially a military hospital. The way commissary works is that we each get a "commissary sheet." It lists all the items for sale with their prices (although prices change much more often than the sheet is updated). In advance, we sit down with a pencil and highlighter, and start putting "1," "2," "3," or "4" next to the items we wish to purchase. A rare item, like packets of ranch dressing, allows us to put a "10" next to it. That's how many we wish to purchase. All items have some limit on how many you can purchase at a time. Once we feel good about our list, we have to go through and highlight the items that we are purchasing, or the actual "shoppers" may miss that item on the long list - that is 3 pages in total.

We stand in line to hand in our lists. The guard comes by at 6:10/6:15 for the first pick-up. Then he picks up again about 20-30 minutes later and then again at 7am. The same routine occurs at lunch time, but being work detail, I am not allowed to do my commissary over my lunch. Once our sheet is picked up, and they've looked at our i.d. to see that we are giving our own sheet AND that it is our proper day to shop (1/4 of the people go each day), then we are left to sit against the walls in the hallway and wait for our name to be called. Most people sit on these really uncomfortable guard rails that are way too low to the ground and too close to the wall to ever be comfortable. My knees don't bend enough for the rail, so I sit my butt right down on the tiled ground and lean in to the rail. It works.

As work detail, they take our sheets only during the first round and we are called on first. I was about 20 people back in the work detail line and my name of called to go to the window at 6:30am. If I were forced to be in the regular line, I would have likely been over 100 people back and my name would not be called until after 7am, sometimes after 7:30am. Those folks give their lists and then head on to breakfast, but if you miss your name being called, you get no commissary for the week.

My commissary list included some of my staples: rice crackers (for peanut butter and jelly), a packet of tuna, a package of m&m's, relish (for the tuna), cheese crackers (for snacking), a 6-pack of Sprite, a bar of olive soap, three sheets of plastic canvas, batteries (for my book light), a pint of ice cream for me and Lola later, etc. I had about $40 in commissary purchases on my list. At the window, I received about $30 of the purchases. They gave me no batteries, no soap, no plastic canvas, and were out of other things as well. That's how it goes. You write what you want, but they are out of many of the items you write in.

When my name is called to the window, it is a small room like at a Western Union, with plastic glass windows and a small hole to speak through. There is also a conveyor belt that drops things in front of you on a small platform. Once my thumb print is accepted, the purchases start coming down the conveyor and I have to pick them up quickly and put them in the bag I brought. It is not until I am back at my unit that I actually have time to look and see what I was and wasn't given. A new commissary sheet is always in the pile, so we have a clean one to use next week.

Since I slept in today, I had to squish the purchases into my already overflowing 3' locker and then get ready for work. I made my bed. Got myself dressed in real work clothing. But still ran out the door, buttoning up my shirt, and throwing on my sweatshirt, so I could have a couple minutes to email before work. Sleeping in on commissary day is not the best way to start my day!