From Dragonfly: Clean Your Room

As kids, our parents would scream at us to "clean your room" or pick up after ourselves. Perhaps some parents were more flexible, didn't care what your room looked like, as long as the door was closed. During my years of addiction, I was a hoarder in the worst sense, piles everywhere. Even when I cleaned, the piles equaled dust and I didn't live in as clean a home as I wished. Once I was in recovery, cleanliness became important. I even scraped the funds to have a house cleaner every couple weeks do to the deep cleaning. I still have piles, but not as many. I am capable of ridding myself of stuff when I have to - I do my best clearing of stuff when I am with someone who can help me make the decisions of what to keep and toss - ergo the incredible work that Traveler did with me before I moved - she actually had me hold onto more things than I intended to. She had to remind me that going away for 10 months (or shorter) was not the rest of my life. I'd be back.

Anyway, cleanliness is very, very important in prison. I've written before about cleaning days (right now, my day is only Saturday, as my roommates all each already had two days and didn't mind my just picking up the missing one). Our rooms have a strict code - military style - of what are beds, our floors, under our beds, and our lockers are to look like. We must dust at the window - even the bars in the window. Tops of lockers must be cleared and dusted. During the week, during the working day hours, our beds are to be perfectly made, no items on lockers or the desk, shoes and laundry bag against the side walls under our beds. The floor must be swept and mopped. The trash can must be empty and upside down under our desk. Many people are in the unit all day, but if we are in our rooms, our rooms must not look lived in. We can be inspected at any time.

When people think inspection is happening in the units, they yell and everyone quickly goes about making sure everything in their room is pristine, the orderlies scrub the floors and bathrooms, and everyone stands outside their room, waiting for the inspector... sometimes for an hour before either the inspector shows up or the inspector doesn't and we have to do it all again later that day or later in the week. The inspector then ranks all 8 housing units and based on that order, inmates are called to meals and pill line. Since our move to the 1N side of the housing units, we have been failing repeatedly... we used to be 1st-3rd consistently in 1S, but in 1N we have fallen to 8th and we can't seem to get it right. Inspectors come and find items under pillows or mattresses, items in empty lockers, dust at the window sill or on top of lockers, things hidden under the upside down trashcan... we all know that these are going to fail us, yet people do it, week after week after week.

Our unit manager has had enough of it. So, like our parents used to tell us to "clean your room," so is our unit manager and we've been grounded just like our parents would do. For this week, we have no tables or chairs in the atrium during the day - no tables all day, chairs only between 6-9pm. People are sitting on the concrete to watch TV or play cards. If we continue to fail, next week, the TVs are going off. Our punishment if that's not enough next week? No email during the third week.

The thing about these punishments is that they are punishing everyone for the acts of a few. Only some rooms get the rest of us in trouble, so those rooms are also at risk. Every room written up will result in everyone in the room getting a "shot." Shots can be serious, resulting in someones inability to transfer to a camp, loss of good time, loss of communication or shopping privileges, etc. No one wants a shot. We must all trust in each other, especially our roommates, that the cleaning will be done (thoroughly) every day. If not, we are risking not only ourselves, but each other, and the entire unit.

I've mentioned that being here is a lot like junior high at times, and this is certainly one of those examples. We must follow the rules, or we will be grounded. We must clean up after ourselves and live in a clean environment. It's good for everyone to accept and follow those rules. So, just remember those earlier days in your life, when you wanted to go out but had to clean your room first. You will be happy you spent the small amount of time doing the right thing.