See how simple that was?

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I guess I should bring up another part of prison life that is very annoying to me. It's the use of the intercom system. I realize that the system itself is obviously in need of an overhaul, but it can still make a tremendous difference in who's using it. Some officer find it necessary to hit a button a couple of times that puts out a high pitched beeping noise to get our attention; scream out their announcement so loud you can't understand them; and then include so much worthless jabber that, by the end of it all, you have forgotten what they were originally trying to get across.

At about 8:50, master count was over and so our doors rolled open. I came out to stretch a little, but then went right back to my cell to work on a crossword puzzle. While I sat there, an officer came in with the mail and began yelling names. I kept my ears open, but didn't waste my time going out expecting anything.

When 9:30 pm came around, I noticed I was a bit tired. Oh yeah, this was a Monday night. I'm always tired early on Monday nights because I have to get up early on Mondays after a weekend of sleeping in. The thought comes to my mind to just go to bed early. Shoot, the wish that I could just sleep through all of this has come to my mind plenty of times. Then all of sudden, SLAM! Oh yeah, forget that idea.

Between the present time and 11:00 pm, my time is spent on the combination of crosswords, drawing my mazes, writing presentation papers, and annoying my roommate.

So now it's 11 o'clock and we are informed to go to our cells for the night. It's a time when the lights to the cells shut off, everything quiets down, and the appointed guys go around giving the quad one last sweep.

I've got about a half hour before Jay Leno comes on the radio channel I spoke of earlier. So I go ahead and clean my dishes, brush my teeth, and get my clothes laid out for the next morning to pass the half hour away. Then I lie down on my bunk, put my earphones on, and tune into the show so I can listen to the opening jokes; Oh yeah, it's the night; he does headlines. My favorite. I try to find any way possible to have a reason to laugh, and it really helps to end the day with some halfway decent jokes.

So my day has pretty much ended, but I hope I have been able to give you a little idea as to what it can be like in prison. Unfortunately for me, it's all going to start over again in about five and a half hours.