Postcard from the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility

Except for rare trips to Serbia, I will guess that most of you have never sat in a chair for seven uninterrupted hours. Last week I did just that in a prison visiting room. The inmate had it worse. I, at least, was allowed to make trips to the vending machines, but policy states that he had to remain seated at all times.

Amazingly, the large room was about half full of other folks visiting their significant others. Some of the wives and fathers and children and fiancées drifted away after a few hours, but most of them hunkered down for the whole 2:30 to 9:30 shift.

And here is what I observed: They looked happy. Now you can analyze that anyway you want. The inmates, of course, were happy because they got a break from the monotony of the unit, and of a population clothed in navy-blue with vertical orange stripes down the pant leg. And vending machine sandwiches are a step up from chow food that comes in boxes marked "FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION."

But none of this, I think, explains why the faces I scanned looked happy. Let me say that I have never sat and talked to anyone for seven straight hours in my life without getting up to open the refrigerator. If any of you thrill-seekers are looking for something different, and you've already done skydiving, I can promise you that you will experience life-and another human being-in an epiphanic way if you look into his eyes for seven hours.

In a world where the person sitting across from you at the fast food restaurant is text-messaging her other friend while you're eating your soup, a seven-hour prison visit in which you have each other's undivided attention is a strangely pleasurable activity. How many marriages would be saved by far less?