Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Concrete Jungle

As many of you may know, going to prison is not very high on my list of things to do. I'm not especially worried about losing my freedom (I rarely leave the house) or any specific creature comforts (they have Xbox in prison), but I am very worried about having to do everything my cell mate tells me under threat of violence (I already have a wife). If pressed, I may confess that the single scariest thing about prison would be the clothes. You see, I am tall, skinny, and have disproportionately long legs. This combination makes finding pants long enough to cover my ankles as difficult as finding an ounce of coherence in the GOP. And, just as my tearful cries for long-enough pants fell on my mother's deaf ears when I was an adolescent (she did my shopping), my formal petitions would go unanswered by the prison warden.

Its important to point out that all of this prison talk isn't leading up to anything illegal. As far as I know, silently judging stupid people isn't a crime (don't tell the Utah legislature) and neither is wishing those same people to die screaming like they're a villain in a Renny Harlin film. I admit that I do "bend" the occasional traffic law and have, in a very distant past, been charged with racketeering, securities fraud, and witness tampering (no convictions -- see "witness tampering"). I'm clean and want it to stay that way.

All things considered, prison would be the worst place in the known universe for a person of my stature and non-existent fighting abilities. And by "all things considered" I mean rape. Instances of male rape cause one to reconsider the very notions of security, stability, and quick access to lubricants. Remember how we cringed when Zed raped Marsellus? Remember how we flinched when hillbillies forced Ned Beatty to squeal like a pig? Remember how we clenched our collective butt cheeks when George Lucas committed the ultimate anal injustice to the original Star Wars trilogy with "updated" scenes? Well, that's what prison is like, and if Andy Dufresne couldn't hack it, neither could I.

These pant's won't do in the concrete jungle.