So, you may be wondering, how do we maintain a married relationship when he’s in prison? Especially living so far away and only getting to see each other 3-4 times a year?

Well, I’m so glad you asked!

We have four methods. Discussing all four at once would make for a very long post, which I am fully up for, but your fun on this happy little island would be over, and you’d be taking the next boat back to the mainland.

So I’ll go easy on you and break it into parts. Today’s lesson in “Communicating With Your Prisoner or Mine”[1] is about phone calls.

Please remember, your mileage may vary, depending on your state, your prison, and your phone company.

Prison Is Calling You

I cannot call him, but he calls me.[2] When I first answer the phone, it takes a full 30 seconds before I actually hear him live. The time before that sweet moment is filled with several monotonous recordings, each in a different mechanical voice—because they’ve been added to the line-up over time. At least we get a little variety.

This is Global Tel Link. You have a prepaid call from

“Misfit. Toy.”

I hear MFT saying his name. This was recorded several years ago. Yes, it’s the same stilted recording of MFT awkwardly saying his name that I’ve heard multiple times a day for multiple months and multiple years now.[3]

Back in the glory days, MFT would be prompted to say his name with each phone call he made. Being the creative sort, he never said his name. He would always give a quick message, like “Hello-hello-hello!” or “It’s ME!” I really miss those little snippets of his personality. I also took advantage of them to gauge his mood, a preview of the upcoming special feature.

Now we’ll continue on with the first thirty seconds. You’re getting a sense of the tediousness of the never-ending recordings, aren’t you?

An incarcerated individual at
California [unnamed] State Prison at [unnamed city] in [unnamed city again], California.

This call and telephone number will be monitored and recorded.

You have a prepaid call.

This is just in case you missed it the first time and are panicking about paying for this call from an inmate.

You will not be charged for this call.

They’re genuinely concerned about you. Don’t worry, dear soul, you will not be charged for this call.

To accept this call, say or dial 5 now.

I used to be able to Say 5 successfully, but only by repeating it very LOUDLY. But now it never works.

*pressing 5*

Let me point out that almost 30 seconds have elapsed from when you first answered the phone, and now you have to push another button. This can be highly inconvenient when you’re right in the middle of deboning a chicken or using—er—cleaning a toilet or something requiring the washing of hands before you touch your phone. Do you stand there immobile for about 25 seconds waiting to push 5, or do you wash your hands, get back to business, and wash your hands again?

Thank you for using Global Tel Link.

Like we have a choice.

Does anybody actually have a (legal) choice? Drop me a comment and let me know!

As if that’s not enough recordings, each call ends after 15 minutes, with a 1-minute warning when your time of sad parting is drawing nigh.

You have sixty seconds remaining.

After that, there is no warning. When the sixty seconds are up, your call is cut off. Sometimes MFT doesn’t realize it and keeps chattering away until suddenly noticing that Dolly is being awfully quiet, even for her.

Also, every few minutes throughout the entire call, a recorded voice interrupts your tender bonding to remind you—

This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.

Yes, even the phone sex is monitored and recorded . . . a topic of much amusement in the love-a-prisoner groups.

Calling back right—this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded—away is not guaranteed, because there are other people wanting to use the phones too. He can call from his tablet, but the connection is nicht so gut, so calling—this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded—from a kiosk is what everyone is after.

The good news is that he usually can call back right away at certain—this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded—times of the day (mid-morning is best), and it’s not unusual to have as many as 12 calls in a row, if I have the time. (He always does.)[4]

Oh yes, and the periodic reminders of monitoring and recording make talking at that time impossible. You must stop talking because the recording—this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded—overrides everything.

The Opinion Section

Imagine trying to discuss anything of importance in only fifteen-minute chunks with interruptions every few minutes.

Imagine trying to have an argument. (We do!)

Imagine trying to write a book together. (We are!)

Imagine trying to have phone sex. (And pushing 5 while you do it . . .)

The CO’s seem to have nothing—you have sixty seconds remaining—else to do except—this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded[5]—listen in on phone calls, clearly an unspoken perk of the job.

And they really are listening through the vent!  One guy MFT knows was making racist comments, and the CO joined the call to tell him he’d better stop it.

Even Misfit Toy himself has had officers call him up to the tower to discuss what they overheard:

I was on the phone, intimately focused on entertaining a lady friend.[6] When I got off (no pun intended), I was called up to the tower by the loudspeaker, at this time not knowing what’s going on. The officer was leaning towards me with his rifle in hand. He had a Cheshire grin. He was impressed by my verbal Viagra-like prowess on the phone.  “Good job, Boy Toy.”

Other times, I’d be called up and he’d get other inmates involved. “Don’t let his looks fool you.” *nudge-nudge-wink-wink* “That guy really knows how to take care of a woman.”

Finally, Dolly’s Final Thoughts

Dolly thinks that a single message at the beginning reminding you about being monitored and recorded is all they need. If people are so stupid as to discuss how to smuggle in drugs at the next visit when they’ve been warned they are being monitored and recorded, then they deserve what they get. MFT thinks it is counter-productive for their purpose of catching people if they’re constantly reminding us that they’re listening in.

And anyways, after six years, it’s just a pointless message that I’ve already heard a million billion times but embarrassingly still couldn’t recite from memory . . . I tempted the phone-calling gods by having MFT call me back repeatedly so I could transcribe the recordings. The

[7]

[1] MFT loves to meet new people!

[2] Admittedly, sometimes he calls too much. But the poor guy really has nothing better to do than to call his beautiful, witty wife. “Hm, what should I do? Watch the spider on my windowsill or call Dolly?” [MFT feels I am disillusioned about his life in Club Med. He says his days can actually be very full of structured activities and self-help, but he prioritizes for his Dolly.]

[3] He didn’t realize he was about to make The Recording For All Time and was caught off guard. I once heard about an inmate who said, “I love you, Jasmine” when prompted for his forever name recording. It’s so sweet when he calls Jasmine, but he didn’t realize it would also be used when he calls his mom, his lawyer, or his bro. And if they break up—won’t it be fun trying to explain the recording to another hottie! MFT knows someone who used “IT’S BATMAN!” in the appropriate voice for his Forever Recording.

[4] MFT says, “Again, I beg to differ.”

[5] Yes, sometimes the recordings stack up like that.

[6] This particular vignette occurred a lifetime before Dolly’s arrival on the island.

[7] things I do in the name of research!