GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #17: DON'T BRING ANYTHING, NOT EVEN CLOTHES

I've found myself in a position in which I'll be visiting someone at the DuPage County Jail. Just to make sure I got all the details, I checked out their website and was surprised by the things I couldn't bring on my visit. Not bringing weapons? I got that. I'm in no mood to bring a cake with a file hidden in it, either. Hell, I even get not bringing cellphones. But some of the other things leave me wondering.


For example, you can't bring books. This baffles the shit out of me. I can't bring the gift of a book to someone who is going to have a lot of reading time on her hands? That's silly. It's not like I wouldn't leave it up for inspection first. Or are they afraid someone would use the book as a weapon? (Although I'm trying to figure out if it's good press or bad press to have someone beat another person to death with a copy of TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE. Hey, it'll get my name out there . . .)


I can't bring food, either? Chow behind bars can't be that great. Maybe she'd like to find out what a Taco Bell Quesarito tastes like, since they didn't exist before she went Inside. (And who wouldn't want one of these wonderful things?) If you're afraid I've hidden a razor blade or drugs in a Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger, then by all means, check it out before I bring it in. For Pete's sake . . .


Sorry ladies, you can't bring your purses. You'll have to leave them in your car . . . in a parking garage . . . where there's a courthouse nearby where a lot of people are on trial, probably for things like stealing purses from cars.


I wonder if they'd take a wheelchair away from someone paralyzed from the neck down. You don't know what you might be able to hide in a wheelchair, after all. Or what if you have any prosthetic limbs? Would they want you to remove them? You might have a gun hidden in your fake arm, right?


Why not just tell us to leave our clothes in our cars? Save everyone the hassle. I'll bet I could figure out a way to get a zip gun in by smuggling pieces of it under my skin. Why let prisoners have visitors at all, then?


*sigh* Why do I get worked up like this before going to bed?