I have recently returned from our fourth Family Visit at a prison surrounded by a 12–14-foot perimeter fence. This fence is topped by a giant spiked slinky. There’s even a 5,000+ volt electrical current atop this fence.[1] (That’s enough to stop your heart.)

When I first arrived at this friendly place and pulled up into the car queue to wait for a parking spot, I watched a woman come out and load up her car and then stand there waving back towards the processing building which is built into the chilling fence. This was almost full-body waving—both arms in full rotation. Her heart was in this wave. I looked to see who she was waving at and another women had just come out of the building and was loading her bags onto the cart for the trek out to her car. A warm, fuzzy feeling filled my heart that these women were such good friends. Feeling buoyed by their goodwill, I listened to my music and waited for one of their parking spots. After a while of still-energetic waving, I was starting to wonder about this female relationship.  Finally, I noticed the inmates, the husbands of these women, standing behind another fence, farther back into the prison—and waving.

If the gauntlet to enter this prison with a six-inch square bag[2] for a regular, six-hour visit is harrowing, imagine what’s required to spend forty-six hours behind the bars! It takes about 2½ to 3 hours to process 3 to 5 spouses/families. (Actually, I should say it takes about 2½ to 3 hours to process the stuff of 3 to 5 spouses/families.) Granted, about an hour of that is sitting around doing nothing. (More about that in a bit—oh yes, more about that . . .)

But here I am, self-effacing and ready to walk you through The Process.

The Beginning

Check-in time (the time during which you must arrive) is 8 to 9 AM. After 9 AM, you’d better pray for an understanding, compassionate officer or a miracle.[3] Here are the steps to follow when you arrive:

1. Park in a Family Visit parking spot. The signs actually say Reserved for Family of Inmates.[4] If you arrive too early, there will be no open spots because the families from the most recent visits haven’t left yet. So you hang around waiting for someone to leave, or you park where you shouldn’t. The guards seem to be understanding if this happens. Load up your giant bag (about the size of a 19th-century steamer trunk) onto a cart and head on inside.
2. Sign your life away on a clipboard and attach your proof of relationship and driver’s license. (Dolly tends to forget the attaching part.)
3. If desired, choose your 5 videos + 5 Xbox games from the jumbo file cabinet. As mentioned previously, the selection feels like the local library. Dolly has always been able to find things she wants to watch, but MFT is a tougher critic. We don’t play Xbox. MFT doesn’t need anything but me to keep his hands full. *wink*
4. Buy as many snacks and drinks as you want from the vending machines. You can take these in with you.

That is everything you can do on your own to speed up the clock. At this point, you must now step onto the conveyor belt and stand there with everyone else. No walking to get ahead is allowed—you must stay still while the big machine pushes you forward.

The Middle

1. Generally, the first item of business is inspection of all the steamer trunks. The order is the order of arrival. On the surface, this seems like a polite gesture, but it’s really moot. We all go through the metal detector at the same time. The order of baggage inspection makes not a whit of difference. The inspecting officer dons gloves and draws you off by yourself, but still in full view of the entire room, before which you will now bare your most intimate clothing items. The awkwardness increases (at least for me) if the officer is of an outwardly male appearance. They are looking for contraband, like weapons, drugs, and cell phones. All the no-no’s! Removing each item, even the lingerie, the officer pats it down. Nothing says Welcome to Prison like an armed guard fondling your lace. (Or the red booty shorts with “Daddy’s Little F**k Toy” emblazoned on the backside.) This is the time when you will need to transfer any liquids to clear bottles. It goes without saying that the more stuff you have, the longer this part takes and the later we can all actually arrive at Part 3: The Paradise.
2. By now, the fresh food has been delivered, and your responsibility is to check that everything you ordered has actually arrived. If not, the officer calls the vendor and they will make another trip to the prison to bring the missing item.[5] After inspecting your belongings, the bags pass The Boundary Beyond Which You Cannot Yet Cross. You’d better not go over and touch your bag! That’s never been explicitly stated but feels very understood. Now, the officer will bring out your box of mail-order food. You can check that everything is satisfactory here too.
3. Of special interest on this last visit, a drug-sniffing dog sniffed through all of our bags. Word on the street is this will be the new normal. (Dolly thinks the dog needs a refresher in basic obedience—it would not stay.)
4. The final part of The Middle phase is being assigned a locker and a lock box. The lockbox is for medication. The locker is for your car key and anything else you’re not taking in (for instance, leftover cash from the vending machines). Phones must stay in your car.[6] You are now—effectively—naked.

The End

And finally, The End.

But don’t get too excited. This part takes longer than the previous two phases even when they are added together and multiplied by a factor of 3,600 (the number of seconds in an hour). All the old adages about time standing still apply. The only thing we do now is sit.

There are no more inspections.

No more communications from the officers.

This is the time when the officer is fetching the men from their various yards and delivering them on leashes to their individual paradises. It makes sense from their side to do it this way. They need to make sure the family member checks out okay before they go get the inmate. If they have to turn someone away, it will save the huge hassle of having to return an inmate to his cage.

BUT! It would be nice (and not too much effort) to just let the spouses/family members know what’s happening:

• It’ll probably be another 45 minutes.
• I’m going to go get the guys now.
• It’ll just be another 15 minutes or so.
• I need to call the fresh food vendor.
• We’re almost ready.

Something.

Anything.

Please!

This phase is generally an hour—sometimes shorter, sometimes—oh, merciful God in Heaven—longer.

Unless some ladies strike up a conversation, the only sounds are the shuffle of a foot or a yawn.

A creak of a chair as someone shifts.

The far door opens. We hear chatter as people with business at the prison pass through their very brief checkpoint. They’re the lucky ones—a quick I.D. flash and they’re through.

The second hand completes another circuit. The more I focus on the clock, the slower those hands move.

We sit with our chairs facing the official side of the room, all our burning eyes focused on whichever officer is moving around the most.

This time is

So.

Incredibly.

Painful.

for Dolly.

The other ladies don’t seem to mind—they appear to calmly sit, lost in happy thoughts of their approaching reunions. Dolly, on the other hand, feels like crawling out of her skin, jumping up and down, walking laps around the parking lot, or screaming. When Dolly was diagnosed with ADHD in October, she saw light streaming down from heaven and heard a chorus of angels. It all makes so much sense now!

Some Dopamine

Now, Dolly’s applied her bit of fluff up top to this Hour of Horror. Here’s what she’s come up with—she will buy a 24-piece set of Word Search puzzle books from a big, jungle website for $32.99. That works out to only $1.37 per book. She has an almost-new pack of pens she bought awhile ago that don’t warm her heart. She will bring one puzzle book and one pen to each visit and keep them out of the bag search and locker assignment.

This will give her some dopamine during the Interminable Interim. When it’s time to go through the metal detector (the point of no return), she will add her book + pen to the disorganized jumble atop the jumbo file cabinet. More than likely, based on the age of said jumble, they will still be there 46 hours later. If not, well, it was well worth $1.37!

The End of the End

We proceed through the typical visit clothing inspection (read my #3 post for the details), then through the metal detector, through a sliding glass door and into a pen that looks like it was made to corral a velociraptor. We wait for the gate at the end to  s l o o o o o o o w l y  open and we pass through it into a second dinosaur pen. We wait for the gate behind us to  s l o o o o o o o w l y  close before the gate in front of us  s l o o o o o o o w l y  opens.[7] Then we and our heavily-laden carts roll through unto the other side, where the buildings are beige, the hard-packed earth is a darker shade of beige, and the dirty sidewalks are also beige.

The five family visit bungalows are across the hard-packed, open space. The men are standing at their gates waiting for their families. Some hold onto the fence, trying to get as close to their loved ones as soon as possible. Others dance around. Still others grin so big you can see their teeth. Happy calls and shouts travel back and forth across the empty space.

But where is my misfit toy? He’s nowhere to be seen. Because my dear little toy is gimpy (one of his springs is kinked), he’s been labeled handicapped, and we are always assigned the handicapped bungalow. I load my stuff and hop into a shuttle to ride to the other end of the prison to our Personal Paradise. And that, dear readers, is the topic of my next post.

[1] Hoffmann, B., G. Straughn, J. Richardson, and A. Randall. “California Electrified Fences: A New Concept in Prison Security.” Corrections Today, Vol. 58, Issue 4, July 1996, pp. 66-68. NCJRS Virtual Library, https://ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/california-electrified-fences-new-concept-prison-security#:~:text=An%20electrified%20fence%20is%20a%20security%20measure,come%20in%20contact%20with%20an%20adjacent%20ring/wire, Accessed 19 Jan. 2026.

[2] Your handbag can be no bigger than six-by-six inches and must be clear. Ziploc bags suffice.

[3] No, I’m most definitely not implying they are the same thing.

[4] Excessively Literal Dolly was very confused her first time. She had been told to park in a family visit spot, but these are not labeled as Family Visit. What to do? She took a chance (the other labeled spots are for the handicapped or special employees), and I am pleased to say, she chose wisely. Those are indeed the Family Visit spots.

[5] I’m sure the vendor just loves coming back.

[6] During the summer in California’s Central Valley, you’ll want an insulated cell phone bag!

[7] I tell you, it’s straight out of Jurassic Park.