You know...
...when things go wrong, they really, really go wrong. I found a box of blueberry muffin mix and mixed it up and then I poured it into some muffin cups. I had turned the oven on a while back to be sure that it was pre-heated and when I went to put the muffins in there, I noticed that the oven was cold. The broiler element works, but the bottom one is burned out. So, I just broiled the stupid muffins and now I have blueberry muffins that have burnt muffin tops. There was a time when that would have shot my entire day to hell, but I'm not going to get too upset over it now.
I was going through my cabinets looking for things that I had all of the ingredients to and besides the muffins, all I could come up with was Jell-O. So, I'm making some Jell-O. If I get sick of Jell-O, I can make some Jell-O Jigglers. Actually, I like Jell-O quite a bit, I just hate waiting for it to gel. That's what I'm doing tonight, waiting for Jell-O to gel. It's not as much fun as some things I've done, but it could be worse.
OK, now it's Monday morning, my Jello-O gelled and I've eaten a bunch of it. I better make more before I run out of the raspberry.
I gave that young man, Chad, my phone number and told him to call me if he ever needed someone to talk to. Bless his little heart, he hasn't stopped calling me since I got out of jail. I don't mind talking to him occasionally, but I can't afford to spend the entire day speaking to him. The other day when my friend Melissa called me, I knew that I had her number on caller ID so I didn't write it down. My phone will hold 50 numbers and before the day was out, Chad had called me so many times that he knocked Melissa's number right off the phone. I keep telling him that I can't afford to accept his calls so many times every day and he just tries to reassure me that he'll repay me when he gets out. I feel terrible not answering his calls, but even if he did repay me, the phone would be disconnected before he got out. I really do feel badly for him and I wish I could talk to him, but I just can't afford it. I know how lonely it is to be locked up and how much you want to call someone in the outside world, but I just can't keep accepting his calls. I'm not even sure how much it costs to accept a call from Bartow County jail. I know that it was $1.75 a call from Cobb but I wasn't in Bartow long enough to find out about that.
Most people wouldn't have any reason to know this, I didn't know if before my time away from home, but there's a company that sells correctional minutes to people who have loved ones in jail. I'm not sure exactly how it works, I guess they began it because so many people had cell phones and couldn't accept collect calls. It costs approximately 18 dollars for a fifteen minute phone call. That's how people call long distance out of prison. Some people just have regular collect calls, but for some reason, others don't. So, if your phone doesn't take collect calls and you want your family or friend to call you from jail, you buy correctional minutes.
There's a heck of a lot of money being made by correctional departments and the businesses that cater to them. I would think that counties like Cobb that have so many services contracted out would be making the most money out of it. I don't know for sure, but they did seem to be making money everywhere you looked. Maybe it's because that was my experience, but it's a huge money making operation. The commissary was amazingly profitable, they charged 89 cents for those dime packs of noodles that you buy in the grocery store. They served bland food that would make hospital food look tasty and then sold MacDonald size packs of salt and pepper for 2 cents a piece. An envelope of chili that you could "cook" under the hot water from the sink was close to 3 dollars and 6 ounces of decaffeinated instant coffee (that you used the same hot sink water to make) was 3 dollars as well. A bottle of prison shampoo that contained about 2 or 3 ounces was 89 cents, but they sold a larger bottle for $2.89. The shampoos each had a matching conditioner that was similarly priced. You get to order from commissary on Sundays and the stuff comes on Tuesdays. I bought a few things the first Sunday that I was there, mostly toiletry items like shampoo and deodorant but I did get some salt and pepper and a few snacks. Surprsingly, I was robbed so I wouldn't ever buy anymore stuff if I ever had to go back. The folks who didn't rob me just begged me for my stuff and I'm a sucker for someone who asks for food so I gave away a bunch of it. Usually, they would promise to pay me back but no one ever did. The only palatable food came from commissary so it's not surprising that people wanted that stuff.
There was one young woman there who was quite pregnant and she would sit by the people who passed out the commissary items and take notes on who bought what. Then, she would spend the week begging for stuff from them. She learned early on that I was a sucker so she got a lot of my food. But at least she didn't rob me so I can't complain, after all, she was pregnant and I know how hungry you get when you're expecting. She also had me ask people I spoke with on the phone to make calls for her. I didn't mind and my daughter was pretty good about it but there were a few people who wanted nothing to do with my fellow inmates and I didn't have the heart to tell her that. She took to sitting next to me while I was on the phone, hoping that I would have the people that I was speaking to call her family in New York. I couldn't imagine being pregnant in jail, especially considering the lack of decent medical care available.The day that I had chest pains, I begged the guy to let me call my son to get my medications. He asked what I wanted and I said, "My Inderal, it's my heart medicine." He said, "Inderal isn't a heart medicine." I was already panicking and that just made it worse. My life was in the hands of a man who didn't know what a heart med was. That was one of my many low points. I can't imagine how a person could go through an incarceration and not decide to stay out forever. I was only there a bit over two weeks and I wouldn't want to go back for another 15 minutes. If I were truly a criminal, I would learn to fly straight toot sweet after being there for such a short period of time. Of course, there were so many people there just for being criminally poor that I couldn't swear to it that I won't go back soon. My probation officer doesn't like me one bit and there's no way in hell that she would cut me a bit of slack should I miss a payment and I'm supposed to go see her today or tomorrow...and I don't have the money that she wants from me so I'm just praying that I figure something out quickly. I wish they had some sort of program that would let you work off your fines but they don't. There are too many businesses profiting from the work that the prisoners or probationers could be doing. I always thought that the government should put prisoners or peacetime soldiers to work doing the things that they pay private business to do and now I wish that they'd let me do the work myself.
Oh! I almost forgot to tell you something that was one of the biggest, "I can't wait to tell the blog people this!" stories of all! We wore these butt ugly purple flip flops and they had the name Bob Barker on the tops of them. Yep, Bob Barker has his hands in the prison industry! The blankets had tags with his name on them as well. I don't know what else he was hawking to the jails, but he was certainly providing a bunch of stuff to the two jails that I went to.
OK, it's Monday and that means that I should be able to accomplish something today. I have to go try to take care of a few things that I'm responsible for as part of my probation. It's a good thing I'm full of Jell-O because I have to walk wherever I have to go. OK, I'm off to get some of this stuff taken care of, I'll be back later, have a great day and stay out of trouble!
Meg
email me at megbkelso@gmail.com
As always, email me if you'd like a Gmail account, I just sent a few invites out and I still have a LOT of them that I could send out.
...when things go wrong, they really, really go wrong. I found a box of blueberry muffin mix and mixed it up and then I poured it into some muffin cups. I had turned the oven on a while back to be sure that it was pre-heated and when I went to put the muffins in there, I noticed that the oven was cold. The broiler element works, but the bottom one is burned out. So, I just broiled the stupid muffins and now I have blueberry muffins that have burnt muffin tops. There was a time when that would have shot my entire day to hell, but I'm not going to get too upset over it now.
I was going through my cabinets looking for things that I had all of the ingredients to and besides the muffins, all I could come up with was Jell-O. So, I'm making some Jell-O. If I get sick of Jell-O, I can make some Jell-O Jigglers. Actually, I like Jell-O quite a bit, I just hate waiting for it to gel. That's what I'm doing tonight, waiting for Jell-O to gel. It's not as much fun as some things I've done, but it could be worse.
OK, now it's Monday morning, my Jello-O gelled and I've eaten a bunch of it. I better make more before I run out of the raspberry.
I gave that young man, Chad, my phone number and told him to call me if he ever needed someone to talk to. Bless his little heart, he hasn't stopped calling me since I got out of jail. I don't mind talking to him occasionally, but I can't afford to spend the entire day speaking to him. The other day when my friend Melissa called me, I knew that I had her number on caller ID so I didn't write it down. My phone will hold 50 numbers and before the day was out, Chad had called me so many times that he knocked Melissa's number right off the phone. I keep telling him that I can't afford to accept his calls so many times every day and he just tries to reassure me that he'll repay me when he gets out. I feel terrible not answering his calls, but even if he did repay me, the phone would be disconnected before he got out. I really do feel badly for him and I wish I could talk to him, but I just can't afford it. I know how lonely it is to be locked up and how much you want to call someone in the outside world, but I just can't keep accepting his calls. I'm not even sure how much it costs to accept a call from Bartow County jail. I know that it was $1.75 a call from Cobb but I wasn't in Bartow long enough to find out about that.
Most people wouldn't have any reason to know this, I didn't know if before my time away from home, but there's a company that sells correctional minutes to people who have loved ones in jail. I'm not sure exactly how it works, I guess they began it because so many people had cell phones and couldn't accept collect calls. It costs approximately 18 dollars for a fifteen minute phone call. That's how people call long distance out of prison. Some people just have regular collect calls, but for some reason, others don't. So, if your phone doesn't take collect calls and you want your family or friend to call you from jail, you buy correctional minutes.
There's a heck of a lot of money being made by correctional departments and the businesses that cater to them. I would think that counties like Cobb that have so many services contracted out would be making the most money out of it. I don't know for sure, but they did seem to be making money everywhere you looked. Maybe it's because that was my experience, but it's a huge money making operation. The commissary was amazingly profitable, they charged 89 cents for those dime packs of noodles that you buy in the grocery store. They served bland food that would make hospital food look tasty and then sold MacDonald size packs of salt and pepper for 2 cents a piece. An envelope of chili that you could "cook" under the hot water from the sink was close to 3 dollars and 6 ounces of decaffeinated instant coffee (that you used the same hot sink water to make) was 3 dollars as well. A bottle of prison shampoo that contained about 2 or 3 ounces was 89 cents, but they sold a larger bottle for $2.89. The shampoos each had a matching conditioner that was similarly priced. You get to order from commissary on Sundays and the stuff comes on Tuesdays. I bought a few things the first Sunday that I was there, mostly toiletry items like shampoo and deodorant but I did get some salt and pepper and a few snacks. Surprsingly, I was robbed so I wouldn't ever buy anymore stuff if I ever had to go back. The folks who didn't rob me just begged me for my stuff and I'm a sucker for someone who asks for food so I gave away a bunch of it. Usually, they would promise to pay me back but no one ever did. The only palatable food came from commissary so it's not surprising that people wanted that stuff.
There was one young woman there who was quite pregnant and she would sit by the people who passed out the commissary items and take notes on who bought what. Then, she would spend the week begging for stuff from them. She learned early on that I was a sucker so she got a lot of my food. But at least she didn't rob me so I can't complain, after all, she was pregnant and I know how hungry you get when you're expecting. She also had me ask people I spoke with on the phone to make calls for her. I didn't mind and my daughter was pretty good about it but there were a few people who wanted nothing to do with my fellow inmates and I didn't have the heart to tell her that. She took to sitting next to me while I was on the phone, hoping that I would have the people that I was speaking to call her family in New York. I couldn't imagine being pregnant in jail, especially considering the lack of decent medical care available.The day that I had chest pains, I begged the guy to let me call my son to get my medications. He asked what I wanted and I said, "My Inderal, it's my heart medicine." He said, "Inderal isn't a heart medicine." I was already panicking and that just made it worse. My life was in the hands of a man who didn't know what a heart med was. That was one of my many low points. I can't imagine how a person could go through an incarceration and not decide to stay out forever. I was only there a bit over two weeks and I wouldn't want to go back for another 15 minutes. If I were truly a criminal, I would learn to fly straight toot sweet after being there for such a short period of time. Of course, there were so many people there just for being criminally poor that I couldn't swear to it that I won't go back soon. My probation officer doesn't like me one bit and there's no way in hell that she would cut me a bit of slack should I miss a payment and I'm supposed to go see her today or tomorrow...and I don't have the money that she wants from me so I'm just praying that I figure something out quickly. I wish they had some sort of program that would let you work off your fines but they don't. There are too many businesses profiting from the work that the prisoners or probationers could be doing. I always thought that the government should put prisoners or peacetime soldiers to work doing the things that they pay private business to do and now I wish that they'd let me do the work myself.
Oh! I almost forgot to tell you something that was one of the biggest, "I can't wait to tell the blog people this!" stories of all! We wore these butt ugly purple flip flops and they had the name Bob Barker on the tops of them. Yep, Bob Barker has his hands in the prison industry! The blankets had tags with his name on them as well. I don't know what else he was hawking to the jails, but he was certainly providing a bunch of stuff to the two jails that I went to.
OK, it's Monday and that means that I should be able to accomplish something today. I have to go try to take care of a few things that I'm responsible for as part of my probation. It's a good thing I'm full of Jell-O because I have to walk wherever I have to go. OK, I'm off to get some of this stuff taken care of, I'll be back later, have a great day and stay out of trouble!
Meg
email me at megbkelso@gmail.com
As always, email me if you'd like a Gmail account, I just sent a few invites out and I still have a LOT of them that I could send out.
posted by Meg Kelso | 4:30 AM
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