Prisoners sit around all day watching TV shows about us, the free population. Why can't we watch shows about them? Answer: We can! I'm not talking about poseur programs like Oz. I'm talking about actual reality TV set inside the actual reality of prisons of America: Babies Behind Bars, Jail, Lockdown, Lockup, Lockup: Extended Stay, Lockup: Raw, and Prison Women. I can't get enough of these shows.Do prisoners watch prison TV shows on TVs in prison? If so, there should 100 percent be a show about that. It could be called Prison TV Prison, and it'd show clips of imprisoned men and women watching prior episodes of this very same show. During commercials (meaning, commercials airing on the prior episodes), the prisoners could address the camera with halting, heartfelt monologues about how they could have done better in the prior episodes they now watch.Watching these shows reminds me that one of my life goals is STAY THE FUCK OUT OF PRISON. That includes drunk tanks, city and county holding cells, TSA detainment, federal prison, immigration pens, juvenile detention, overseas imprisonment, theme park jails, and any form of Mad Max / Waterworld post-apocalypse captivity situation. So it's always something of a shocker to remember that all of us are really never more than 30 minutes from imprisonment while watching these shows. Especially while watching these shows. If you were out hiking or at the beach, they'd have a much harder time finding you. All it takes is a typo on an arrest warrant, and boom! Your door is a pile of kindling and you're on the lawn in cuffs. Your cats? Ironically, they're free to see the world now. The front door is gone. Remember? It could be hours (or weeks) before your fancy lawyer (or overstressed public defender) gets the whole mess straightened out.Often, when watching these shows, I find myself making a mental checklist of things I would miss in prison. This list includes: driving, milkshakes, my cats, privacy, safety, and sitting in my quiet backyard and contemplating my own freedom, as I often do. To be fair about it, sometimes I'll make up another list of what I would not miss from the outside world. This list includes: alternate side parking, cleaning the cat box, Facebook, overhearing Natalie Merchant's music, inward-swinging men's room doors, traffic, vacuuming, and worrying about going to prison.To be really fair about it, I should also list what it is I'm missing by (hopefully) avoiding prison for the rest of my life. Don't say, "at least you'd have time to catch up on your reading." That's a stupid, Orange County Republican golf course type thing to say. You try reading the complete works of Mark Twain while sharing a cell with a 390-pound horse rapist. Jesus.No, I'm talking about those bona fide mysteries of prison that have no counterpart in the outside world. So far, I only know of one: Meal Loaf. According to the prison shows I watch, Meal Loaf occurs when a prisoner has been very naughty with his or her food. The kitchen staff mashes the following day's breakfast, lunch, and dinner into a thick slurry and then bakes this slurry into a high-carb brown brick. It's punishment food. But what does it taste like? I wonder this a lot. It probably wouldn't taste the same if I mashed and baked all the Trader Joe's products in my own kitchen.More importantly, I don't want to know. If I ever do get thrown in the can, I'd like one thing to look forward to.SAM MCPHEETERShttp://twitter.com/#!/sammcpheetersPreviously - ChexSystems
Advertisement
Advertisement