Every Day Hum Drum

It's Monday. I hate mondays. Not just because it's back to work, but because it's back to two or three days without hearing his voice. Calls are expensive, ranging about $2.50 for fifteen minutes- which may not seem like a lot, but trust me, it adds up. And that's just the beginning. The cost of stamps is astronomical when you write every day, and send multiple sheets of paper with research, news articles, and comics along with your letter. My man has a voracious mind for knowledge of all kinds, and there is no internet connection where he is. So I'm the go to girl to keep his brain entertained and active. I also make sure he gets his newspaper every day, and the science magazine he loves once a month.

Then of course, there's money for canteen. Those conservatives that insist inmates are fed three square meals a day should go live there for a few days and see exactly what inmates eat. They are given the bare minimum nutritionally, and often the food itself is rancid, making it impossible to eat. So if the inmates are lucky, they have a family member or significant other who can afford to give them money to buy supplemental food at canteen.

And then visits. I live eight hours from my man's prison, which adds up quite a bit in gas and wear and tear on my car. Not to mention the hotel, meals, and the money for the vending machines in the visiting room. There's nothing more satisfying than watching him tear into vending machine food, proclaiming how good it is. Mind you it's really not very good. I don't ever eat there. But it's such a step up from what he's used to being served inside that it must taste like gourmet fare to him, and that's all that matters.

So, in short, having a man in prison is rather expensive in a myriad of ways. Many of us prison wives and girlfriends work second jobs to be able to afford to care for our men and still pay our own bills. But my point was, calls were expensive when grouped with the rest of the costs, and therefore, I don't hear from him every day. He calls me two or three times a week, and twice on Sundays.  Sundays are his day and I don't leave the house all day for fear of missing those precious two calls. There's a certain sense of serenity waking up Sunday morning and knowing soon I'll be hearing that phone ring. The ring tone on my home phone has become sexy to me because I associate it with his deep rumbling voice. It's a very Pavlovian response when it rings- my heart pounds and I leap to my feet to run for the handset like a little girl on her first date. I'm spending the day with him, in a way, as close as I can without driving the six hundred miles to get to him.

And then Monday comes. And that comforting feeling of being so close I feel I could reach out and touch him, is gone. It's back to the grind. Back to a grueling, stressful job week. Back to coming home to an empty house and sleeping in a lonely bed. Back to stalking the mailman for a letter. Back to constantly handling the stresses and the isolation and the hope that he'll be home soon.

Sigh. Yeah... I hate Mondays.

It will be better tomorrow.