Anyone who’s been incarcerated has either developed the habit of spitting their toothpaste into the toilet or has witnessed countless others do it.

Before prison I never even thought of spitting toothpaste waste anywhere but the sink, now I cannot imagine spitting anywhere but the toilet. When I first fell I developed the habit in what’s known as a 4-man wet cell (so named because it houses 4 people in one cell, as the name suggests and “wet” because it has a toilet and sink inside of it, a “dry” cell has neither). The people I lived with all spat in the toilet claiming that to spit in the sink would be disrespectful since it is used to create things that go in our bodies and the toilet is used to discard things that come out of our bodies.

For some reason that logic stuck with me and here I am just about 10 years later in a wet cell and it never crosses my mind to spit anywhere but the toilet. Since I’m on quarantine a friend of mine came to check up on me and I happen to be bent over my toilet spitting out toothpaste holding my hair back in a ponytail and they announced themselves by saying “Eww! You spit in the toilet!?”

It caught me off guard, it also made me laugh because the only response I had at that moment was “I’ve been down for a minute”. Lol. I’m sure when I get out the bathroom sink will become a logical space to discard mouth waste, like toothpaste spit, but for now…I’ll stick to the toilet.

Ahh, the strange habits prison forms.

With Love
Ruth