Carpet munchers

When the wardens at the prison work camp said they were doling out cash to have the walls painted and the carpets replaced one thought came to all the inmates' heads:

Why don't you just give us that extra cash. We can live with the seven-mile long hash mark leading into the men's bathroom, the blood stains in the reporter's cage and barf streaks by the copy editors (some of them can't hold their liquor so well). Hell, just hire an extra body or two with the dough.

Of course, that logic didn't fall on the wardens and they went ahead with their beautification project. You can spit shine, Turtle wax and bleach a turd all you want, wardens, but when it comes back from the cleaners it's still a steamin' hunk of dung.

This might come as a shock to some, but I'm not the cleanest bloke on the block, not to mention I'm also not the most coordinated or graceful. I know, it's a shock, but the sooner you accept it the easier it is to move on. So, putting new carpet under my ass is equal to putting a fresh diaper on a baby after feeding it a two-pound can of chili (not that I would feed chili to a baby, well, unless doing so meant a Charger/Dodger win, in which case you just have to ride the streak). I've dumped everything from coffee to refried beans to clam chowder soup on my desk and my general vicinity, so imagine my surprise when I didn't see a drop cloth or a biohazzard suit with my name on it.

And just to tempt fate today - because I am a wild child who likes to live on the edge - I brought in a Gladware container of Mexican chow for lunch. Salsa, beans, assorted melted cheeses and chillies all hovering dangerously close to the new carpet. Each bite clinging to a plastic fork with tines as strong as an 80-pound 8th-grader trying to do one pull up (yes, I was that 80-pounder, and my tines couldn't lift a Del Taco burrito back then). I could feel the warden's eyes on me with each scoop. To him, I was sure lunch in my area was in slow motion, waiting to scrub any soiled splotch of new carpet with my cheek. And I'm sure, tucked away in his under ground lair, the supreme chancellor of our prison work camp was watching on his in-camp TV my disaster waiting to happen lunch, prepped to screech out "Swarm! Swarm! Swarm!" to the newly formed carpet police if so much as a rogue leaf of cilantro hit the shit-brown fibers underneath my chair.

I'm sure to the supreme chancellor's dismay, however, there was no accident. My lunch stayed where it belonged - in the Gladware, on the fork or safely tucked away in my gullet. The chancellor and wardens will have to find some other reason to scrub the rug with my cheek. If you see me with a rug-burn tattoo next time, you'll know they found that reason.