How To Succeed in Prison Without Really Trying

Friday was a busy day - lots of court hearings. One of them was mine. Unlike our friend Fred, this defendant's case was a felony and heard in District Court. (Cue the Perry Mason theme song.) District Court is a nail-biter. Forget the laid back, night court style. This is Law & Order stuff.

The defendant, or as I like to call him - my guy, was one of the first hearings of the afternoon. I was seated at the council table with Mark the Assitant DA. We both tried to look like grown-ups who were taking this important business seriously. Its a lot easier to pull that look off now that they have replaced the table that was too tall and the chairs that were too short. When we sat in the old furniture and pulled up to the table, we hit it at about the same level as Mikey and his bowl of Life cereal. Hard to pretend to be a grown up when you start out at that level!

My guy and his lawyer were at the table beside us. The defendant testified first.

His attorney took him through the reasons why he screwed up his probation. Why had he failed to report? Well, at first it was because he was having trouble doing his community service hours. He knew his officer would be disappointed in him and possibly angry, so he didn't go in to see him. Then, he got a letter saying his officer had been changed to yours truely.

I told him to come in to see me. He did. Once. Why didn't he go back? Because I was obvioulsy not interested in anything he had to say and it was just not a pleaseant experience.

Imagine that - not pleasant. Huh. I guess this means I will have to work on my people skills. Mark the DA had my notes of the visit and started to cross-examine.

The defendant confirmed that he had in fact told me that the reason for his non-compliance was that he was the caretaker for his uncle. (Insert slightly martyristic facial expression here.) He began to explain how his Uncle was disabled but Mark cut him off.

Mark got him to admit that he also told me his uncle was well enough to live alone. The uncle had a girlfriend. The uncle had many other members of his family living here in town and that my guy had not seen the uncle for at least 4 days prior to seeing me. And this prevented him from complying with probation in what way?

At this point my guy was becomming offended at Mark's snarky attitude and command of the facts of the situation. Finally Mark asked "Why was your uncle more important to this probation?"

"Because he bought me a $60,000 and when he said "jump", I jumped."

"Excuse me? He bought you what?"

"A $60,000 car."

"I see. So was the car worth losing your freedom over?"

"No sir, but I don't think I deserve to go to prison for stealing a dog either."

"Wasn't it four dogs, worth about $600 each and you stole them from the owner's home?"

Let me just interject that in this part of the world that would be considered livestock. The Judge Almighty used to be an emu rancher. Emu's are just dogs with wings.

My guy got the maximum sentence and will be spending the next few years in prison. For stealing a dog.

Lurkers and Skulkers Anonymous

Once upon a time we had regular staff meetings. They were pretty much as exciting as your staff meetings. Except for the one with the speaker on time managment. She wanted us to do an ice-breaker. Yeah, well, there were like 12 of us. Our ice is about as broken as its going to get. Her ice-breaker included several actions like turning around or switching chairs and other tasks designed to get your blood moving. One of the actions involved swatting your partner on the rear. I kid. you. not.

The participation level pretty much bottomed out at that point. (hyuck, hyuck.) Not only was it a stupid idea, we'd just had a supervisor get fired and later prosecuted for having sex with his probationers on his desk. I don't remember anything the lady had to say about time management, but I will never forget the look on everyone's face when she wanted us to do some butt-bumping.

However, that is not the story I was gonna tell you. This is not even really story - just a photo.
We had an 8:00 meeting scheduled. Life was hectic and the boss was never late, but she was generally less early than most of the rest of us. She came charging in and sat down at the conference table. She launched into her first topic still having only barely glanced at the assembled masses. After about a minute, she realized that something was up - we were all being respectfully silent and overly attentive. She took a good long look at the end of the table.

That's me on the left. And unless I receive remuneration, I will identify the person on the right. (Technology has made my extortion business much easier, but I have yet to reap any financial dividends.)

As for staff meetings, we never paid much attention anyway, and none of us were in any way interested in posterior proximity exercises, so now we only have to endure them a few times a year.

We were notified today that Ken has died. Second from the right. We will miss you Ken. I'll never hear about the dead sea scrolls without remembering your sly grin. I'll miss you when NPR has broadcast a really witty story and I've no one to discuss it with. And sometimes I'll buy biscotti - not because I like it, but because you would. You will always have a place in our stories.