Newsscapes of Urf
You know, prison has a bizarre time effect field.
In the 21 months since I left the real world, I've aged more than five years, and lost track of or forgotten more than I care to admit.
I don't even remember what pineapple tastes like. ... or real oranges, come to think of it.
We sit behind the concertina wires and fences in this anachronistic, nearly isolated bubble, while most of the real world passes us by. Occasionally, tidbits of real news makes its way over the fences in the form of a rare newspaper subscription actually clearing security, or a magazine making it to its subscriber, or on the rare chance someone is in a dorm where the news is actually watched, then some news via television is had.
It would be grand to puncture that isolation bubble and let news and information pour in. While we're sequestered, letting the outside world roar past us does us a disservice for our return to society. After all, how does one act in modern society when THEIR model of 'modern' begins with a year in the 1990s, for example?
Oops. Making sense in Florida is against the law. :')
Now, I've been unintentionally scaring a guy here who is on the last half year or so of his sentence. He's been gone just about 15 years.
The other day, while watching televised food porn (it was an Arby's commercial), I tell him about the kiosks at McDonald's, and how the employees were driven (at least in my part of Oregon) to gently nudge you toward ordering without a cashier helping.
"Wait, they don't ring you up at the counter now?" was his incredulous reply.
Not if you take the nudge and go to the kiosk.
He didn't like that.
... at first.
I tell him it's to cut down on orders of Umms and Uhhhs at the counter slowing you down when you know you're ordering a Double Filet-o-Fish meal with a Diet Coke. You can get in and out; other person can keep searching for a cup of Diet Umm (or was it an Uhhh salad?) on the menu in the interim while you're biking back to work.
Funny how he related to that: here, it's nearly insufferable to have someone in front of you in the canteen line, knowing they had as much time to make a list...
Can I get a, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHH**... cheese squeezer? Just one, please, I'm broke AF.
Nearly two minutes to buy one cheese squeezer. 🤦🏾
(Sadly, this is not hyperbole.)
Once he understood that the cashier can still help him at the counter ("I don't want to use the kiosk." or "I'm paying cash."), he was okay again.
... Wait until he learns about the Coke FreeStyle machines in other restaurants. :')
Now, imagine if, in the last 3-6 months of incarceration, a video summing up the last ten years of societal changes were made part of a curriculum shown to people who've been down more than six months.
Things that might seem insignificant to you or maybe me, like tapping to pay with your smart device, hailing a Lyft, or having your GrubHub driver deliver your vegan shawarma platter÷ to your doorstep are things that didn't exist 15 years ago for this guy.
Telehealth, Telepsychiatry? Television, you mean, right?
These are real issues: I've had older men ask me (once they realize I'm actually approachable and willing to help or answer), "What the hell is ... good for? Can't you go get it yourself?"
- Instacart
- DoorDash
- Amazon ...
Yes. These are men in their 60s, 70s, who grew up in an era where you got into your Chrysler LeBaron, your Mercury Grand Marquis, your Yugo GV, and drove down to whatever store or restaurant you wanted things from, buying it yourself.
Having over-the-top services like the above doesn't make sense to them, because they haven't lived in use cases for them.
I explained to one guy the use of Instacart for me:
Picture this. I don't own a car. I do most of my shopping by bike and bus. This gets to be treacherous when my home city gets snow on the ground, because of the snow/sand slurry that fills the bike lanes I'm supposed to use. Still, I gotta eat.
Someone else, who gets paid something for the work, goes to the store in my stead, picks my grocery list, and brings it to my place, where I've shoveled and salted the walkway to make sure there is safe footing for them.
Hooray, I get to eat!
"Why don't you own a car?"
Expect to pay more.
In this hell, people remember the last time they were on the streets, when buying a used car might cost $1,000, and it actually ran and drove.
Being isolated, they can't see that pricing has run away, that used cars are typically $3,000 or more, that housing is a clusterstruggle, that visits to an urgent care run $250 or more for an encounter, that an ER visit costs somebody $4,000+...
If we were to open up a large stream of data to these people here behind the wires, showing them what the world is like...
Are the incarcerators afraid that these men will never want to leave? That their system of taking the lives of men and women who commit crimes will become so overburdened and unsustainable?
Is that the monster FDC fears to become, the one that keeps it up at night?
... Huh. No wonder they're screwing us so badly: drive them back out into society, make them hate us so badly that they decamp from the state. Let somewhere else deal with 'em.
Remember, readers:
In prison, it's not a staff shortage.
It's a prison overcrowding issue.
Live from the Blessington√ Meat Warehouse, it's me.
Take care, and thanks for tuning in.
÷ Nothing against vegans or shawarma: I just had a reference to a John Scalzi book to make. The Kaiju Preservation Society was a fun read. Also, Kahurangi grinned. :')
√ As before, facility name changed to protect the incarcerated.