i willn't be a prisoner

i'll stick you in the gut with a shiv

I am constantly looking ahead to the future, usually between one and five days.  I suspect that I am not alone in this, as most people from the time their week starts on Monday morning are looking ahead to Friday evening, when you are allowed your scheduled visit to the prison yard.  It’s two blissful days of perceived freedom before Monday comes again and they lock you back up.  As Jaime said to me the other day, “this is no way to live.” 

There are 365 days per year and approximately 260 workdays.  Let’s imagine that your company gives you the four major holidays off, Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July.  Let us also assume that all four of these days fall on a week day.  Lastly let’s say that your company is generous and gives you fourteen days of paid vacation.  Between weekends, holidays, and vacation this comes to 123 days to pump iron, play basketball and instigate gang fights in the prison yard and 242 days per year locked up.

I meditated on these numbers as I sat staring at the padded taupe colored walls of my cubicle prison.  If I did this for ten years I will have spent 2,420 days waiting for the weekend.  That comes to over six straight years without a weekend break, of day to day general unhappiness.  When I think about it in those terms I question why I would subject myself to this.

There are some people, glass-half-full people who will make the best of this situation.  They will find the little things to enjoy, give meaning and motivation to their everyday life.    I am not one of those people, the glass is clearly half empty.  Instead of drafting a plot heavy escape plan involving a map tattooed on the left buttock of a cellmate, I would become complacent.  I would complain every day and wait impatiently for the forthcoming weekend, which will flash by me.

I wonder if our concept for prisons is all wrong.  Perhaps we should convert them into office buildings and instead of cells, inmates will sit in cubicles droopy eyed in front of piercing  computer screens. They will compose emails and submit invoice, and once an hour their boss will come in and give them a pep talk about their work performance and how to meet their goals.

At the end of the day the cubicle door will be opened and they will slowly file down the hallways back to their rooms.  There they will make their own dinner, do their own laundry, and if they’re lucky they will have just enough time to watch a soul sucking rerun of Two and a Half Men.

After decades of time served they will be released into freedom, having spent the best years of their lives slaving away for a faceless corporation, they can now enjoy their golden years.  They can watch all the Two and a Half Men they please and worry about whether or not medicare will cover the blood pressure medication they need thanks to their years spent in the corporate world.

I wonder if implementing this would cut down on prison overcrowding, or in the end would some lawyer get a judge to rule it cruel and unusual punishment.

* * * 

I almost catch myself longing for the life of an inmate when I realize that the differences between their life and mine are vast.

I don’t have to worry about getting stabbed in the gut with a shiv.

I don’t have to worry about dropping the soap in the shower.

Lastly, when inmates get their time in the prison yard they are closely watched by men in guard towers holding rifles.

My free time is mine to do as I please, it is not an illusion like the prison yard.  Weekends are only an illusion of my own perception.  Inmates are in prison for the long haul, death or parole are their only escape, I on the other hand am free to go at any time.

So why don’t I escape?  Like most, I’ve got bills to pay and vacations I want to take.  I’ve got to go with the highest paying job that will accept me just so that I can do these things.  Don’t I and others out there deserve to find work we love to do?  Work that makes us excited to get up in the morning, work that keeps us from always looking forward to the weekend?

We do, and I do.  I’ve been complacent and let the prison guards slowly construct a cell of padded walls around me.  Because I don’t want to look back in ten years and wonder what I’ve been doing with my life, I am planning an escape.  I’ve had someone bake me a series of cupcakes each containing another instrument to help me in my jailbreak.  On the outside I will find a job, one where I can be happy.  It may not be exactly what I want right away but few things are.  I will make it into what I want, and not spend my life looking forward to another day off in the future that will only end up a mild disappointment but rather looking to the next exciting day of work.  I proclaim, I will not be a prisoner!
posted by: brian snider