so i just finished rereading an email i sent two years ago today--
"i have just returned from an exciting day spent pouring several hundred individual gallons of used motor oil into a large drum. as i write this, the heady fragrance of petroleum surrounds me like a sort of greasy cloud. after i finished this tedious task, all of the convicts (including yours truly) retired to a small 'semi-heated' room at the perimeter of the recycling center and promptly fell asleep. one of the other convicts' heads slumped onto my shoulder, which woke me up. i tried to read a bit of vanity fair (the thackeray novel, not the magazine) but i kept getting embarrassed by the ridiculous lithographs of women in petticoats holding puppies on virtually every other page."
this reminded me of my brief run-in with federal law, which resulted in a small amount of jail-time served by none other that mccullen himself. i fondly recalled the note that was slipped under the door of my cell that first morning, just after i refused my breakfast and with it the right to consort with the other malcontents in the Common Area. the note, appropriately scrawled in a child's penmanship, read:
Kid--
you should no[sic] better than to waste your food. next time you don't want your food i will eat it and i will pay you with a candy bar or a apple pie.
a few lines beneath the body of the note was a closing statement.
Now its just that easy...
paper must have been at a premium in this particular jail, because on the reverse side of the note there was a relatively unintimidating drawing of what appeared to be a grinning elephant, though the part of the paper containing most of its body had been torn off (presumably to serve as the stationery for more edicts for new inmates). i figured that the note had come from two cells over, as it was signed "6-UP" and my own cell was designated '4-UP.' i had never seen the inhabitant of 6-UP, but i had been told that he had stabbed someone and was serving thirteen months. information like this usually came from my friend in 5-UP, a friendly carjacker who was a year older than me. though i never learned his name, C.J (as i've come to call him) offered me other bits of advice, like what items from the jail's store could be sold for more desireable illicit items like cigarettes. c.j, taking me under his tattooed wing, informed me that although most of the inmates were "pretty cool," it's really never a bad idea to "watch out for the niggers." we got along okay.
anyway, i guess that since it's been two whole years since i've written any emails about pouring used motor oil into a drum, perhaps it is safe to say that 2002 will be my best year ever.
knock on wood.