Put the joint down and slowly step away from the keyboard.

It's been a while since I've had an inner-net "rocket genius" call in. Luckily I just talked to a customer who should keep me satisfied for quite some time. This was a young guy who ended all his sentences like he was asking a question. You know, kinda like this. "Yeah? I'm having some problems? With my laptop?" Anyway you get the picture. Ready............ go.

Customer: Hi. Yeah. I've got this laptop? It won't get on the internet? You know, the high speed? I think it needs the secret code number. Do you have that?

Me: You are hooking a laptop to the cable internet, sir?

Customer: Yeah, but it won't work. I can get the colors? and the sound? and that stuff? but I can't get the the internet.

Me: So what happens when you try to open Internet Explorer.

Customer: Yeah.

(Silence)

Me: What happens when you open Internet Explorer?

Customer: Whats that?

Me: Well in order to get on the internet you have to open some kind of internet program or browser. Internet Explorer comes with windows. Are you using Windows sir?

Customer: Well this computer is brand new. It's expensive. (Somehow that seemed like a logical answer to the windows question.)

Me: Do you have your desktop up in front of you? With all the icons and the start button.

Customer: Yeah.

Me: Do you see an icon that looks like a blue "e" called Internet Explorer?

Customer: What's like, the abbreiver for it. (rocket geniuses use a different word for "abbreviation")

Me: It normally is not abbreviated it's usually spelled out.

Customer: Oh! I see it! It's a button? on my keyboard? it says IFN.

Me: I have no idea what that is. That's not it. This is on your desktop, you know, the tv-like screen with all the pictures on it. Do you see the start button?

Customer: Oh, well I'm not getting any picture right now.

Me: Your screen is totally black?

Customer: Yeah. (yes, although it may seem hard to believe, his computer was not even turned on)

Me: Sir, is your comptuer even turned on?

Customer: Well I think it might have to charge for a few days, if you could just give me the secret code number I think I could get it going. (I was not about to try to explain to him that no laptop has to charge for days at a time, I just desperately wanted to get off the call.)

Me: Sir, the high speed internet doesn't need a password to work. Once your computer is on just open Internet Explorer and it should display your homepage for you.

Customer: No password? Not even for the high speed?

Me: Was it asking you for a password?

Customer: Well no. But the internet wasn't working. (God damn it. If he wasn't even opening his fucking internet browser, how the fuck is his internet going to work, and even if the internet required a "secret code number", where the fuck was he going to type it in at if it wasn't even asking him for one. Sorry about the potty mouthing. But that felt good.)

Me: Well, once you computer is charged and turned on, just open up Internet Explorer.

Customer: Ok, I'll just let this thing charge for a couple days or so and then I should be able to get it running. (yes, I'm sure you'll do just fine on your own, my friend)

This is funny. An old He-Man cartoon clip with audio from the Big Lebowski. Lots of swearing. Good stuff.

Chuck Norris sings Meatloaf. More funny time.

My Week in Jail - Days 5, 6, and 7

My time is served, bitch. YAY!!!! Eat it Linn County, yeah, eat that shit. I think I've already begun to block out most of what went on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. One thing did happen last night though and I thought I was going to get my ass beat with only 12 hours left to go. We were watching the Bears playoff game against the Panthers and there were a couple of guys who are big Bears fans, Mr. Abs and Red Goatee Guy. This black guy named Dee had been cheering against the Bears the whole time simply to aggrivate those two guys. I was half asleep in my bunk at the end of the game when Dee starts going nuts. The Bears had just lost. Here is my best representation of the next few minutes.

Dee - "Yeah! That's right muthafuckas! Fuck the Bears! Fuck the Bears! Muthafuckas got their ass beat! Damn right! Fuck the Bears! The Bears suck! They fuckin' suck! The Bears ain't shit! Fuck the Bears!"

Mr. Abs - (Calmly) "We heard you the first time, Dee."

Dee - "Fuck you muthafucka! Fuckin' talkin shit all day! Fuck the Bears muthafucka! Fuck you! Cry baby muthafucka!"

Red Goatee Guy - "Yeah he was saying fuck the Redskins yesterday too."

Dee walks over to this guy and gets in his face - "Fuck you you ugly ass muthafucka! You wanna shut me up? I'm a grown ass man! I can say what I want! You better punch me in my mouth if you wanna shut me up, bitch! What! Fuck the Bears! Fuck the Redskins too! Fuck all you muthafuckas. You need to respect this shit! Shit, I'm a grown ass man. You better punch me in my mouth! Bitch ass muthafucka! Why is there muthafuckas sleepin up in this bitch."

Dee then walks over to the guy in the corner bunk and starts shaking his bed. "Wake up muthafucka! It's on in this bitch! Fuck the Bears!"

Then this other guy sitting at one of the tables says "You better wake this guy up too." I had my head down on my mattress at this point but can only assume he means me. Sure enough crazy ass Dee walks over to my bunk and starts shaking the shit out of it. "Wake up muthafucka! Get yo tired ass up! It's goin down in here!" I just rolled over and smiled at him and he left me alone. He calmed down shortly after that. For a few minutes I thought I was going to see a jail room brawl, though, and it wasn't very much fun.

Other than Dee going insane the rest of the time was pretty boring. There were a couple pieces of conversation that I overheard after lights out that need documenting, though.

Saturday night the three black dudes stayed up until about 3AM talking about shit. I was asleep the whole time but woke up at one point because they were all laughing hysterically. The only part I caught was something about fucking a handicapped midget.

Sunday after lights out I overheard this gem.

Piss test guy - "Yeah if I wouldn't have punched my old lady we'd prolly still be together."

Acne face guy - "You punched her? Man I coulnd't do that. Can't bring myself to hit a woman. I choked a bitch a couple times, yeah. But I just can't hit em."

Ol' Dirty Bastard look-alike - "Yeah I only hit my bitch one time. The bitch hit me in the face with a frying pan. I punched her right in the head. Blaou! Knocked her ass out. Had to wake her up with some cold water. The bitch deserved it though. You can't be goin after no nigga with a frying pan."

Acne face guy - "Man you punched her in the head? I mean I guess if she hit you with a frying pan, but, I still just don't think I could do it."

Ol' Dirty - "What you mean? You over there chokin' bitches. What's the difference?"

Acne face - "Well I did'nt 'choke her' choke her. Just like to hold her down. To calm her down and shit."

Nice, huh.

Piss test guy is missing a couple teeth due to fighting and meth use. The last thing I overheard before falling asleep on my last night was this.

Ol' Dirty (talking to the guy in the bunk next to him) - "That dude's toof didn't fall out. That dude smoked his toof. He took out his toof, put it in a pipe and smoked it."

My week in jail sucked ass. But it did scare the shit out of me and made me never want to drink and drive again. Talking to guys who are in there 30, 60, 90, or 180 days and thinking about having to stay there that long really freaked me out. One night I was laying there not able to sleep and thought, what if instead of getting pulled over that night someone would have pulled out in front of me or if a pedestrian would have been walking on the road that I didn't see and what my life would be like with a vehicular homicide. No more county jail. More like 10-20 in the state prison. Not to mention the immense guilt of knowing you killed someone, which you would get to think about every day in the pen while trying not to end up a man-bitch. Basically I'm saying I got off extremely lucky, and although I recognized that fact already, being in jail made it more real for me. So to anyone out there who is in the habit of driving home from the bar on the weekend like I was, just know that even though you may be fine to drive, you're not legal, and if you hit someone, even if it's not your fault, you're in deep shit. Hopefully you won't have to spend a week in jail to realize it.

My Week in Jail - Day 4

I can't wait for this shit to be over. Four nights down, three to go.

Nothing worth typing went on last night. I did a lot of reading. Stephen King's The Dark Tower III - The Wastelands. It's about Roland the gunslinger and his two companions, a heroin junkie from the 80's and a black chick with no legs from the 60's who are in some sort of other dimension or in-between world on a quest to find the dark tower. Roland is going crazy because his memories are split by a boy he met by going through a door to another world who was killed by a wizard who was later killed by Roland but Roland had to kill the boy but now he's not sure if that was just a dream or if the boy ever really existed and it's making him crazy but his junky friend carved a key out of a branch and when Roland holds it the voices go away. Pretty simple really, I can't count how many times that's happened to me.

I just had a thought. During the last four days, four different grown men have seen my butthole during the strip searches. It might be a fifth today. That's probably, like, 4 or 5 more than most guys I know. Unless my friends are hiding something from me. Like the desire to show other men their buttholes, for instance.

We've had eggs twice so far for breakfast. But they don't really taste like eggs. They are kinda solid and grainey. Like they were made from an egg mix substitute or something. In other words they are really fuckin gross. And with every meal you get one untensil. A gigantic spoon. It's huge. The first morning when they woke us up at 5:30AM for breakfast I was barely awake and thought I was hallucinating. I can understand that they don't give forks. But why are the spoons so damn big.

My Week in Jail - Day 3

Night 3 in the county lock-up was pretty uneventful. I'm getting pretty good at blocking out all of my "roommates" who never seem to shut up. I've never heard a group of people talk so much about so little. No one is more annoying that the white dudes trying to talk black to fit in. Piss test guy from yesterday is one of those. Last night after lights out the comedian guy was talking about a lunch date he has on Friday while out on work release.

Black dude - "So you gonna get yourself some pussy, man?"

Comedian guy - "No I don't even know her yet, I just met her before I came in here."

Black dude - "Fuck that shit man. I'd be like, 'Bitch I'm fixin' to get mine, so you better be fixin to get yours. I'd be fuckin that bitch right out in the open.'"

Piss test wannabe guy chimes in with his brilliance - "Yeah no shit man, I'd be like in the park and shit. I'd be like, 'Bitch, bend over', hehehehe, yeah man, right out in the open and shit, hehehe, shit, that's what I'm talkin about. But I wouldn't say that to my old lady though. I don't talk like that to my old lady. Hehehe. Yeah my old lady supposed to be brining me some money tomorrow and shit. Hehehe."

He kept going on and on. No one was listening to him. That didn't stop him. He kept talking. Later on he was asking another guy about a job at McDonalds so he could get out on work release. More genius came out of him.
"How long are the lunches man. 20 minutes? Shit man, I was hopin' for a half hour. You know, just to see my old lady. Hehehehe. Yeah man, that sounds good though man. Hook me up with that shit. Wish they had half hour lunches though."

Obviously he needed that extra 10 minutes to see his 'old lady'. Cause we all know it takes 30 minutes and not 20 to bend your bitch over in the park out in the wide open. But wait, he doesn't talk to his old lady like that. Nevermind.

My Week in Jail - Day 2

4:45PM - Check into the jail after work. Once again I get to strip down naked and display the underneath of my hairy beanbag and the crack of my ass. I spend the next couple hours laying in my bunk reading and getting really sore. Plus the book is super boring. All the books in our cell have been super boring. Do I seem like I'm bitching? Oh yeah, I am. Jail kinda sucks.

8:00PM - We get a new guy in our cell. He's chubby and quiet and looks kinda scared to be there. Later on I find out that was the wrong impression. I notice he starts drinking glass after glass of water.

9:30PM - Three guys go to take their piss tests to see if they qualify for work release. One guy is sure he is going to pass.

11:00PM - Lights out and all 24 of us are snuggled in our bunks like god's little criminals. The brothas and the comedian guy are talking about football when the news comes that comedian guy passed his piss test. He's happy. Other piss test guy who was sure he was going to pass keeps saying, "If you passed, I passed. I know that for a fact. If you passed, I passed. Hell yes. If they tell me I'm dirty, I'm gonna make them test me again, right then and there. Thats what I'm gonna do. Yeah." Then one of the brothas says," You ain't gonna make them do nothin muthafucka. When's the last time you smoked?"
Piss Test - "Sunday."
Brotha - "Sunday? What makes you think you gonna be clean?"
Piss Test - "Well if he passed, I passed, thats what I'm sayin."
Brotha - "Funny man smoked like half a J three weeks ago, you said you smoked on Sunday."
Piss Test - "So what, I drank a bunch of water."
This is when the new guy who was completely silent until now starts talking. It takes me a while to even figure out it's him because he's down below on one of the bunks. Plus his voice is all low and grindy. Reminded me of an 80 year old cajun man.
New Guy - "Shit, you muthafuckas talkin about weed man. I'm on that good shit. The heroin, the Denzel. I do so much of that shit that when I smoke crack it just make me saaad."
The new guy had been drinking so much water he had made himself sick and was puking water and pissing every 5 minutes. "Man I'm pissin so much when I piss, it hurt."

12:00AM - Piss test guy finds he failed the urine test.

7:00AM - Heroin guy finds out he passes his urine test. There you have it kids. If you're gonna do drugs before you go to jail, do the hard shit. Drink enough water and you'll pass your piss test. See.... the system does work. Crazyness.

Anyone have one of these? - My Week in Jail Day I

I was stupid and careless and got my second drunk driving charge in August. One of the penalties is 7 days in the county jail. I started serving my sentence yesterday afternoon at 4:15PM. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but then again I had thoughts of sodomy and shankings so even though none of that happened, it still wasn't what I'd call "fun", or "comfortable". I thought I'd document a timeline of what went on last night, just in case anyone is interested what life is like in the county lockup.

4:15PM - I show up at the jail and pay my rent for the week, 182 dollars exact, in cash. Also 10 dollar locker fee and 10 dollar drug test fee (which they never gave me).

4:30PM - After being booked in, getting another mug shot, etc, I was shown to the locker room area where I'm told to strip naked. "Lift up your sack.... good, now bottoms of your feet... good, now turn around and spread your cheeks... good." I don't think he really meant "good". My buttcrack is like the Amazon jungle in springtime - thick, damp, and full of wild game. I could have hidden a fully loaded AK-47 up there and he wouldn't have seen. There's a nice visual for you.

4:45PM - I am led into my new home. About 22 rough looking guys all stopped what they were doing to check out the new guy. Talk about awkward.

6:00PM - The TV turns on and I climb down out of my bunk where I had been laying and trying like Dorothy to click my jail-issue slippers together to get my ass home. Didn't work by the way.

8:30PM - Some black dude who had been in his bunk since I got there starts having a seizure. He ends up being ok but we had about 6 medical people in there and he got carried out on a stretcher. One of the medical people in there was a female. Once she left all the guys were talking about her. "She looked like she would have been a wild fuck." "Yeah man I could tell she wanted me, as soon as she stepped in here she was instantly wet." Don't let anyone tell you inmates aren't gentlemen.

9:30PM: We were watching CSI: Miami and the guy sitting next me didn't like one of the actresses. Everytime she would say a line he would say the same thing. "Maaan, what a fuck-in bitch." The first few times I turned my head and kinda smirked, wanting to be socialble. But after about a half hour of it I couldn't bring myself to respond.

11PM: Lights out and everyone shuts up except the three brothas. They stayed up until 2AM talking about Young Jeezy's slammin new jam.

2:30AM(approx): I was awakened by the loudest fart I had ever heard in my life. Nuclear blast. The three brothas go wild. "Daaaaaaaaamn!" One of the funniest things I've ever heard while in jail. Wait, I have only been there about 10 hours.

5:15AM: Everyone is awakened for breakfast. Cocoa Puffs. 23 grown men in jail eating cocoa Puffs. "Look, Killer Mike, my milk turned chocolate!".

5:45AM: One of the guys gets up hacking like crazy. He goes into the bathroom/shower area and starts coughing to the point that he starts gagging and throwing up. It sounded like he was puking up chunks of lung. This almost makes me gag. I sit up to take my slippers off and realize my sheet is missing. It had fallen through the crack between the wall and my bunk and was half laying on the guy below me. God damn it.


That was basically it for my first night in jail. I slept until I got to leave to come to work and here I am. More updates to come.