Jail break

I went to jail today. I feel positively racy announcing that in white-bread social circles. I was only visiting, but it’s quite the conversation starter. I was a bit scared the first time I went to jail. I thought there would be lots of menacing, tattoo-covered thugs trying to steal my purse. However, most people look just like my neighbours. It makes you wonder what their friend/relative has done to get themselves behind bars. Drug dealing, insider trading, murder … ? I’m often surrounded by murderers on my visits. Some of them are quite infamous. But, like Hollywood, the cool thing to do is pretend you don’t recognise them. There’s also the occasional brain-destroyed-by-drugs boyfriend with spittle down the front of their polar fleece, even they’re quite friendly when they insist on a chat. Deciding what to wear to jail can be tricky, as you don’t want to look too flashy. Mind you, one time I followed two girls wearing drag-queen stillettos and tight black dresses so short they had to hold them over their fannies as they walked. At 8am in the morning. Maybe they came straight from work. The prisoners don’t get much choice in their attire. They’re zipped and tied into white overalls to stymie any attempts to exchange contraband during the visit. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before you get to see the prisoner in their white overalls you have to spend 90 minutes faffing around (also designed to stymie any attempts to exchange contraband during your visit). Sometimes the faffing even starts in the carpark, with a squad of armed officers and sniffer dogs lining everyone up and searching them. That’s very exciting and always adds extra kudos to your white-bread-social-circle storytelling. Normally, people just mooch around having a last gasper before trudging down to the visitor’s centre. When you’re finally inside (there’s usually a 15-minute-plus delay on the official opening time, possibly some sort of power-trip thing, like with bouncers), a nice prison warden – not at all like The Freak on Prisoner – photographs your irises and records your finger prints so you’re on the computer system. The fancy machines they’ve bought to photograph and record can be a bit touchy, so this part takes FOREVER. Then you have to be xrayed for knives, guns etc. Allegedly, the machine throws the occasional phantom knife or gun onto the screen to make sure the prison wardens are paying attention. Must go down a treat with visitors who have heart or nervous conditions. Then your irises are scanned again, just in case you’ve swapped eyeballs with someone since you were photographed five minutes ago. By the time you finally get inside, 30 minutes of your two-hour visiting slot is already gone. Not a biggie for me, but tough on the kiddies who only get to see their mum once a week. When visiting time is up, you give the prisoner a hug, then wait while they’re patted down for drugs. Once they’ve been given the all-clear, the wardens unlock the doors and send you back for a little more eyeball scanning. Presumably this is to double-check that you didn’t visit a very clever Houdini-style prisoner who managed to somehow slip out of their white overalls and swap places with you. When I finally escape, I usually drive a little too fast in my eagerness to put the prison and it’s claustrophobia as far behind me as possible. 

TONIGHT’S MENU: Sprog 1 wants Sri Lankan beef curry and roti. Sprog 2 wants homemade chicken nuggets. I want Malaysian chicken capitan. So I’m making all three (Husband reckons I’m quite mad).