Clothing Exchange In Jail Part 1

Maybe you're reading, maybe playing cards with your cellie, maybe simply staring at the ceiling envisioning all the food you will eat when you get out and trying to stave off sleep, when the lights turn on and the squawking voice comes over the intercom: "Get up, get ready for clothing exchange. Strip your mattress, empty your box, clear your table. Socks, towel, and underwear in hand, standing at your door. DO NOT leave your cell until an officer tells you!"



And thus it begins: clothing exchange in the Salt Lake County Jail. That thrice-weekly event which elicits sighs and groans from the most hardened inmates; something that is unarguably necessary yet exasperating due to its 11:30-12:00 PM scheduling; something by which all inmates measure the passage of time.

Depending on how far you are from the first few cells you sit up with some degree of alacrity, hop to the floor, and remove your chones while standing behind the footboard of the bottom bunk. You pull off your bedclothes, pausing to untie the sheet covering the mattress, then flip the mattress up against the wall. After piling sheet, blanket, etc. at one end of the bunk you pull out your box and begin to arrange its contents - or simply dump it - at the other end (if you've been incarcerated for more than a month or two, this takes a while). Then you wait for the fuzz.