Milk and Bananas

I guess the 5th time was the charm! Each day for the past five days, I have volunteered to work the early morning shift in the kitchen and I finally got that chance. I felt a nudge at my leg at 3:45 am and it was the inmate in charge of waking up the kitchen workers. Amazingly, I was asleep, but when I felt the nudge I instantly awoke and heard the inmate ask if I wanted to work in the kitchen. Of course I said yes, and got out of my bunk to brush my teeth and wash my face. Around 4:30 am, the door opened and I joined my fellow inmates as we walked to the kitchen.

Even though the dining hall and the kitchen are directly next door to my dormitory, we had to walk all the way around to the back where the loading docks are located. Then we proceeded to enter the back of the kitchen but not before we had to pass through the x-ray machine to check for any metal objects. We all passed through without any incidents and as we entered the kitchen, I was surprised because it was so clean. I am not saying it was spotless because the kitchen shows a great deal of use. I believe 2000 meals are served each day but was adequately clean.

Since this was first day, I looked to follow some friendly faces and found the “normal” inmate and followed his lead. Normally, I would have followed my Bunkie, but he took the day off. Each inmate has a specific task and these tasks are assigned by the kitchen supervisor who is not an inmate. We had to wait a few minutes for the posting of the assignments so I was told to get a cup of coffee. Since I don’t drink coffee, I opted for water while everyone else enjoyed the fresh brewed coffee. Several inmates have told me that having a cup or several cups of coffee is the only reason they work in the kitchen. But for me it is something to pass the time and something to do. The assignments were posted and I was on the food distribution line and was responsible for distributing the milk and the bananas on the tray which was very easy. The food line is an assembly line which begins with an inmate responsible for the empty tray which is pushed across the counter. The second stop was where I served the milk and bananas. Then it went to the inmate scooping out farina, then onto the potato station, then to the chipped beef (yuk!). Finally two slices of toast are placed on the tray and given to the inmate waiting at the front of the line. This entire process is hidden from the inmates who are waiting for their trays. It is performed behind a wall and the inmate can see only the final tray, not the inmates who are preparing the trays. I guess this prevents issues such as favoritism and it seems to work very well.

There are other duties such as clean-up crew, pots and pans, back of the house kitchen crew, and cook. It appears that only the servers on the front line change from day to day because all the other positions are performed by a regular crew. This is fine by me because I actually had fun placing the milk and bananas on the trays as they made their way down the assembly line. Besides this, I was the only one who used two hands because I was the only one with two items.

Everyone seemed to know what they were doing so I tried to follow orders. Unfortunately, there weren’t many orders given except for ‘get ready to serve because we have inmates in the chow hall’. When everyone had been served the Co would call out that we should stop. The first order of business was serving all of us our breakfast before any other inmates entered the chow hall. This was good because I got to make up my own tray thus avoiding the chipped beef and adding extra farina. All of us were served. Next it was time to serve the 1000 inmates who passed through in two serving lines. The morning went very quickly and after everyone was served it was time to eat again. Fortunately, just like earlier I made up my own tray that consisted of farina and toast. No matter how hard I try I cannot eat that much. The cooks had prepared breakfast burritos from the leftovers of dinner last night. Everyone, except me, ate the burritos. I tried to keep my low profile so I wouldn’t offend anyone and ate my farina without any incident.

After we were done eating for the second time, it was time to clean up the chow hall. At this point some leadership would have been helpful because the inmates with prior experience knew exactly what to do but no one shared this information. I searched for the alleged sixth broom but came up empty handed because it was lent out earlier to a CO unbeknownst to me. I was able to find a mop and helped mop the floor and we were finished cleaning at 9:30 am. When everyone was finished, we headed back to the dorm, stripped naked when we went through the metal detector and gave our clothes to the Co for inspection. I didn’t know about this procedure, but it really does make sense for security purposes. We are allowed to bring food back but utensils are obviously prohibited. In fact, each of us was given a packet of peanut butter to take across for a fellow inmate who is getting transferred this week. Yes, we are allowed food, but it is limited to one item per inmate. Again, there weren’t any problems and we proceeded to the dorm. Prior to getting there, we were given two lunches as payment for our services. Fortunately, today had tuna fish so I welcomed the extra packet.

All of this may sound very mundane to many of you, but I did enjoy my service in the kitchen. I enjoyed it because it offered a change of pace and my day went by faster than usual. Here I am with a college education and a very good work background working in a kitchen serving milk and bananas to fellow inmates and I was enjoying myself! I am trying my best to make this situation a little more tolerable so I can be back with my family sooner as opposed to later. A minute takes 60 seconds and these seconds will go by no matter what I do or don’t do. However, I choose to do and hopefully I can be more productive which will make the days go by faster.