Thursday, September 06, 2007

THIS IS DEPRESSING

The Parole Officer checks in, as all visitors must do, at the front desk.

He’s paying a visit on someone. Someone for whom he is The Man, the person whose word means the difference between freedom and imprisonment.

Someone who will, shortly, pay a visit to the restroom, where, under the watchful eye of the Parole Officer, he will piss into a specimen container.

The Parole Officer is not pleased, but, after all, it is a job, and somebody has got to do it. And so he signs the visitor register.

Ten minutes later, he leaves with his specimen bottle, now full of golden urine and warmed to near body heat. If traces of Forbidden Substances are found in the urine, he will need to return on a far more unhappy and unpleasant errand.

The Parole Officer drives away, his jaw set, unsmiling. He hates having to visit Middle School.

No comments: