Day 10 Fruit Police

The phone rings as I am rinsing a handful of plump organic blueberries to go with my hemp and flax seed granola. I glance at the caller ID and it blinks "unknown caller." Immediately I reach for the receiver before it goes to voice mail and hear the now familiar computer generated female voice telling me I have a prepaid call from a federal penitentiary. it has lost its shock value for me and getting a call from a federal penitentiary is now as routine as taking a call from my grandmother. It is amazing what we can get used to.

He is frantic. He keeps repeating, "are you all right." I assure him and go on to tell him I had gone to a movie last night and had missed his call. He continues on telling me how worried he had been. How he hadn't been able to sleep. We lose 90% of the phone time to his reliving the anxiety. The last couple of minutes are spent talking about his new diet. He tells me how breakfast for him involves getting in line, eating a piece of fruit and returning to go through the line again for another piece of fruit. The guys refer to this as eating on a daisy chain as they go round and round. Weekdays are usually apples and once in a while an orange, but weekends he informs me are a treat because they get bananas. I ask him if the guys are allowed to bring fruit back to their hotel cells. It is against the rules. They had just done a fruit sweep and found some of the men were hoarding fruit in their "rooms." I didn't get a chance to ask what the penalty was for the fruit infraction. It sounded like a serious matter. I made a note to ask if it would go against "good timed earned." The 15% time reduction they could earn for being ideal inmates. I urged my fruit loving lover to not even consider risking it.

The phone line made a few barely audible beeps and the call ended at the preassigned time. I looked over at my beautiful perfectly ripened blueberries perched perfectly on the granola and reached for one.