A Silly Little Wishlist Behind the Wires

I was speaking with a person here who's been in Florida prison longer than I've been alive, and they were reminiscing when their family and loved ones could send care packages some decades ago. They mentioned an 8-Track Player as one of the items they received, which got a raised eyebrow out of me.

What? I know what an 8-Track Player is. 😄

What it did do is make myself and Stony (a fellow classmate with a stone-like demeanor that makes his nom de plume) both wish that we could have that luxury (relatively speaking) of outside items. We both remarked that it would certainly lower the conflict rates behind these fences if we could have real world items; limit us to only X pounds of received items per year; restrict specific items (e.g. no cellphones, weapons, chemicals).

I've been chewing it over in my head, and I know what kinds of items I would certainly take, even now. So please enjoy my silly little list of things I'd love to have. :)

an eBook Reader

Look, if we could have a dedicated book reader mailed in with books preloaded... I would be the happiest clam. I was thinking about all of the time I spent with my ∆×{"Barnes and Noble" -- please restore the ampersand} Nook SimpleTouch Glowlight, with books from my public library, the tons of fan-written fiction stories, and loads of self-published works from Feedbooks, SmashWords, SoFurry, and other venues.
Having a few hundred books in my pocket for train and bus rides was amazing, as I can change books according to my mood or desire to learn on a subject.
It would also significantly reduce the weight of the books I'll have to pack up and carry when I move -- I have a LOT of Buddhist texts for my personal studies, which has curtailed my ordering of additional books in part. Condense it down to one novel-sized device with a two or three week battery life, please? One with a backlight so I can read at any time, any font size, and not need the room light to look up bodhicitta at 10:30 P.M.? :)

a Standalone Audio Player with FM Tuner

Digital device convergence is a thing, but there is something to be said for having dedicated hardware in some cases. This tablet I use, as example, has a headphone jack placed in the absolute worst position the designer could find, necessitating an awkward grip to stabilize the tablet for input without applying pressure to the headphones plugged in. If my music were on a smaller, lighter separate device, typing on this one would be less noisome, and I would also be able to go exercise more to my music without the worry of dropping and damaging a tablet that Securus will overcharge me to replace.
The FM tuner allows for us to hear the audio as we watch the televisions in our dorm, and provides variety as we tune in to our local NPR repeater before it disappears.

Hair Clippers

I wish, so much, that it were easier to maintain a no facial hair stance in prison. You either pay for Magic Shave (a chemical depilatory cream), pay someone who has been in prison long enough to buy hair clippers to shave you (ew, where have your clippers been!?), wait for the Barber Shop to allow your dorm to send people to have a trim, or give up on managing your facial hair.
While I would love a rechargeable situation, Florida prisons frown on waste reduction and prefer you to buy a pair of AA batteries for a little under $4.00 every few weeks. Still, an option for those of us who get poor results from foil shavers and chemical burns from Magic Shave would be wonderful.

Katjes' Salzige Heringe

What's a wishlist without treats? :) I enjoy salted licorice, and I would buy a little bag or two of these at World Market; one for right now, one for later (now it is later, ja?). They had the right proportion of salty to sweet, and they used no animal product in the making of the little fish-shaped licorice, making it vegan friendly (yay!).

I know...

I am in prison, so I do not have a right to some of those things, but I can both daydream, and I can also point back to when prisons here in Florida used to actually allow families to actually meet some level of those desires, and met others themselves. :) I would say that the removal of the yearly family care package is detrimental to the minds of people here behind the wires.

As the clamps on books being received tightens more (we are down to 4 books per month, religious and nonreligious combined at Blessington), that electronic book reader would be wonderful to keep the mind fed, especially if coupled with access to a public lending library to get new books once the preloaded ones are finished. I'd gladly beg my folks for $50 a year to subscribe to a service like that, just saying.

The portable audio player gives people access to more of the music they love at far more equitable prices than what Securus charges ($1.51 to $1.97 per song, with some one song albums at $2.23 to get extra out of pockets). There is an expression about music soothing the savage breast, and in this hostile environment, a lot of soothing is needed.

Hair clippers are a health protecting issue -- we are led by rules to keep our hair a certain length (or shorter). Make it easier for people to comply with the rules by selling us a battery operated set of clippers or beard trimmers like you used to, Florida.

And the candy? It's just candy. :)
Candy that reminds me of better times, gives me a goal to look forward to, whether I can give back my sentence or not.

I hope you had a chuckle at the silliness in my wishlist, but also see the potential good there is, buried in a small bag of salzige heringe.

Until the next time, dear readers. :)