A Day In The Life

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

One day I was in a regular housing unit. But it wasn't your typical day. The previous night that unit had some trouble. Some inmate decided it would be cool to try and fight an officer over some prison brewed wine. Luckily that officer is very good and we are all trained to respond appropriately to situations like that. No one got hurt and the inmate was placed in the Special Housing Unit. Apparently, while all this was going on, other inmates took the opportunity to beat up another inmate and leave him bleeding in a shower.

Awesome.

So the unit was locked down.

So far that morning, people had come in to do interviews and then they checked people for injuries. I was walking around a lot and making sure everyone was behaving. Then it was lunch time.

Since they were on lock down, lunch consisted of four slices of wheat bread, two packets of peanut butter, two packets of grape jelly, four cookies and a little bag of pretzels all packaged in a little box. So I set out to give one box to each inmate. Some complain, but most take them without a fuss. After I passed out the lunches to the very last cell. I began gathering the packing boxes and cart that they came on.

That's when I heard the song. It was this song.



But it was being sung by an inmate and the words were about peanut butter and jelly. So I look into the cell. There are two Hispanic inmates, they are young and they are dancing. They are doing a Beyonce booty shaking dance and singing about the sandwiches.

I just cracked up. Then they saw me. One of them turned red and sat on his bed. The other one just laughed. He said he had to have fun with something. Then he went back to his booty shaking.