Its ten am. I wake and I look over and the dog has snuggled up next my legs; he has the sense that i provide some sort of security. Its not true... there are days that I wanna strangle this poor 8 pound mongrel. Why strangle a small dog you ask? Because his asshole has no respect for mans furniture and concept of toilets..

My head is heavier than a Buick. It lacks motivation; it feels like it belongs buried in my pillow. but sooner or later I have to get out of this bed because if I don't get out of bed people are gonna think that I'm a useless human being. and I probably am; at thirty one I have a felony criminal record and no job and no prospects going for me. I have twenty dollars in my wallet and my most valuable possession is my xbox 360.

I lift myself out of bed like a vampire looking to feed. I look at myself in the mirror, I remind myself that I need to work out. I lost a bit of weight in the joint and I have committed myself to keeping it off. I make a vain effort to eat better, with good results though. i usually run and do a bit of calisthenics a few times a week, which keeps the blood from settling because if I don't move off the couch I'm in danger of becoming comatose and possibly go insane.

I shower. Then jack off in the shower to some soft core porn I remember watching the night before on showtime. Its all part of the same ritual and routine that plagues me like aids or cancer of the face. Another day, another shower, another porn memory, another day of living rotting.

I dress and go downstairs and make me a salad. by this time its lunch and I get my two phone calls arriving on schedule. First its my girl and life partner, then its the usual telemarketer. Which might as well be my life partner because the same pricks keep calling everyday and there is no reasonable way to get off their goddamn phone list.

Today is different though. today I'm meeting my new probation officer. I have to report to the thumb of the law. a new overseer to make sure i don't fuck up the privilege of being on probation. and to make sure I know where to report to, as well as to make sure that I know where to send my restitution payments. at about 1:30 pm I'm gonna leave the fortress of ineptitude and head down to the county probation office.

I jump in my little hatchback and drive the whopping mile to the county courthouse. parking seems a bit hard to find but somehow I find favor with the parking gods and find me a spot only a half mile away from the courthouse. I think to myself i could of walked from home .

Courts and government buildings no matter how full of people and things going on have always seemed empty and cold to me. Like you know that this is the place where fates are decided and when judgement is passed somebody is surely getting raped by an attorney or jury wearing s&m attire. its probably not happening but that's whats just going thru my mind.

4Th floor. that's where i need to go. and an elevator appears before me. Perfect timing. I'm at least 15 minutes early for my appointment.

I get to the fourth floor and I exit the elevator to see a nice plump Latina girl sitting behind an inch thick glass panel, safely protected from the rest of us felonious riff raff. I give her my name and instructs me to wait in the hall with the rest of my criminal brethren. there is this long white hallway with a row of chairs lined up against the windows that showcase the courtyard. I think to myself someone in this group is not going home today. They probably slammed some dope earlier and are gonna test dirty and get busted and probably spend a month in the county jail only to be released and slam dope again. wash, rinse, repeat, its all to familiar and all to common.

I find a seat between this withered white lady/junkie/tweeker who looks like she's been here to many times and has sold her body a couple of times for dope. I'm not sure of this but she looks like she probably has. and on my right is another white chick way to skinny to be a pothead blabbering about how she is the most unique person in the world and how the world will never know any chick like her. Bullshit; there are to many of her kind around, most of them on skid row or in halfway houses. but shes to stupid to know any better, someone told her shes special and somehow believed that lying sack of shit.

All of us here are not here because we make safe and sane decisions. Were here because we're to stupid to not care for the law. And this is where we find ourselves post incarceration, waiting in the hall for our p.o. to call our name and for them to advise us that we cant be near any firearms and to be sure to check in every month.

The wait begins. the blabbering continues; she's being egged on by another jack off who claims to have taken a psychology class and he can analyze her unique personality and notice that shes special too. its a vain and feeble attempt to get this poor girl to suck this guys peepee. And it'll probably work. Give'em what they want. Its what it comes down to.

I look at the faces around me, I see a lot hardship. I see allot punches thrown and eviction notices and missing welfare checks. i see a lot of bad decisions made and i see a lot of people in need of a bit of luck. but the result is always the same; prayers unanswered and PG&E shut off in the middle of their favorite Maury Povich episode. There is a lot of time served between all of us. I'm pretty sure we have all had a taste of tear gas and jail buses. this is my tribe.

Two hours go by; I finally meet my P.O. and to my surprise its a young white girl who is no older than 22 with a great future in law enforcement. You can tell she hasn't become a cynic yet. naivety is still written all over her face. We bullshit a bit about my tattoos and how they are so not gang related, because to my knowledge star wars fans haven't formed a gang and the robot on my right arm isn't a symbol of some prison mafia. we talk business and I soon leave.

I look down the hall as leave her office. Some probation people open a door and are escorting a guy i was waiting in line with in handcuffs. I knew it; someone was going to jail today....