The inspiration for my imagination
I was minding my own business on twitter when all of a sudden I come across Joseph Ferragamo tweeting about his new position as an Incarceration Counselor/Advisor. He is offering his services to those who are facing incarceration in the near future. I’m sure Joe has a lot of good, first hand advice and knowledge about prison life and how to while away the time. If Arnold Swartzenegger is the “Terminator,” then I am going to dub Joe “The Incarcerator.”
I have never been incarcerated, but I am curious as to what kind of advice Joe is prepared to give from his personal experience. I can’t very well ask him because it’s not fair for him to divulge all his secrets for free. But as I sit here, turning this around in my mind, I felt a blog coming on just for fun. Obviously, this is meant to be humorous, and nothing in this blog should be attributed to Joseph Ferragamo, whose only contribution was a bit of inspiration for a blog idea.
An Inmate’s Guide To Incarceration
1. Pick your friends wisely. Don’t befriend people who are chatterboxes or have low IQ’s or both. Their incessant chattering will make your 5 year sentence feel like 10 or more.
2. Start a diet. This ain’t Mayberry and you won’t be getting any of Aunt Bee’s home cooking. Prison food stinks, the mashed potatoes are lumpy, so just eat what you have to in order to survive and become lean and mean.
3. Exercise. A workout routine will help kill the time, keep you healthy both mentally and physically, and toughen you up. You never know when you might need that extra muscle in a tight squeeze.
4. Read the Bible. You are going to need a lot of prayer and meditation to get you through some bad situations. A sample bedtime prayer might be: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my stash to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray they know it was inmate Jake.
5. Be positive. Now is the time to catch up on all that reading you’ve been meaning to do, but never got around to because your criminal activities got in the way. Try getting your hands on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment or War and Peace, by the time you finish one, you may be up for parole.
6. Be Resourceful. You don’t have much to work with in prison so you have to think like MacGyver. For example, you can make a set of dice out of papier-Mâché with toilet paper, water and glue. If you are very creative, you can even make a whole chess set.
7. Learn to Cook. You’d be amazed at what recipes prisoners can concoct with a few items purchased from the commissary, like Ramen noodles, and some stolen from the cafeteria. Study online recipes for prison life, like no bake cheesecake and prison wine, before being hauled to the klink. Being a prison chef just might keep you healthy and happy. Remember, the way to a fellow inmate’s heart may be through his stomach!
8. Educate yourself. Rehabilitation doesn’t work. Your best bet for getting a job when you are released is getting yourself educated. Maybe you can study to be a paralegal since you already have some first hand knowledge and background in the judicial system?
9. Write letters to loved ones. Pour out your experiences on paper. Who knows, when you get out, you might be able to turn the correspondence into a best selling book.
10. Learn to draw. What could be better than a prison novel? An illustrated prison novel!
11. Learn to sleep with one eye open. Just sayin'
PLUS BONUS Guide for jailhouse visitors: including directions on things like how visitors can smuggle in Sunday sauce and meatballs in a potato chip bag.
But seriously, if you know someone facing prison time, and they would like to consult with Joseph Ferragamo about what to expect in prison and more, you can reach him on Twitter @JosephFerragamo.
Thanks to Joe for being a good sport!
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