There is an old adage about the cobbler's children going unshod that makes me wonder what trade or profession, if any, breeds the most problematic children. Is there a segment of the population, career-wise, that contributes more significantly to the prison population? Being right here in the thick of things, as it were, I am ideally suited to researching this question, and so I conducted another of my informal polls.
In my first, completely random, sampling, I was unable to uncover any trends, so I decided to narrow my focus and exclude those inmates whose speech patterns and Dodger facial tattoos seemed to betray an inexorably deterministic path toward prison gates, regardless of the parent's occupation. My revised sample was a more-or-less racially balanced group of 20 men whose general appearance and demeanor seemed to indicate that they could've gone either way. Guys who you could remove from this environment and introduce into polite society without undue notice.
Result? BING!B1NG!BING!BING!BING! (slot machine payoff noises)! A most clear and definite trend. The outcome may surprise you, but probably not. I'll get to the conclusions later.
I have personally embarked on many wildly divergent career paths and if any of my myriad jobs have anything in common, it's that, like the cobbler referenced above, I had zero desire to perform unpaid the duties I was, during working hours, getting paid for. When I toiled in the restaurant business, I would not lift a finger to feed myself at home and in fact converted my oven into a hedgehog habitat. When I did data entry in accounts receivable, I would often spend my weekends at the dump smashing computer screens with a golf club. I've never been a firefighter, but I can imagine a scenario like the following:
Child: Daddy, Daddy, I was playing with my matches and I set my curtains on fire!
Firefighter Father: Goddamnit all to hell, I spend all day up to my ass in smoke and soot and flames and this is what I come home to? Get the extinguisher out of the garage and leave me the hell alone.
I once answered an ad in the Ukiah Daily Journal seeking a lab assistant for animal research. Perfect, I thought I love animals, I can ably assist, and I have an inquisitive nature ideally suited to researching. Surely these traits will more than make up for my complete lack of experience or education in the field. I set up an interview for the following day and hit the thrift stores to shop for a white lab coat. Dress for the job you want, isn't that how the saying goes? I couldn't find one, but I did locate a naval officers' white mess jacket complete with tails and golden shoulderboards. I cut a rather dashing figure, if I do say so, but I worried I might be overdoing it so I elected to mitigate the jacket's resplendence with an open-necked Hawaiian shirt and khaki cargo pants. Excellent.
The lab was in small medical complex on South Dora. I "capped" my ensemble with a jaunty little porkpie and toddled off for my interview.
The "lab" did not have the austere, antiseptic quality one might associate with such a place. It was carpeted in avocado deep-pile and had several cheesy Western-style prints adorning the walls. A desk with a rotary phone on it occupied one corner and there was a bank of animal cages lining one wall, stacked to about eye height. I identified a couple of cats, a badger, a beagle puppy, and I few large rodents I couldn't immediately place.
In the center of the room was a sort of flat-topped pillar done in the classical style, about chest high, and painted gold. Atop it was a contraption of jointed stainless-steel segments and leather straps concluding in metal buckles. "Velcome!" said the boss in a German accent, looking nothing at all like a scientist in a pink Ban-Lon shirt and grey Sansabelt slacks.
"Good morning," I said. "Listen, before we get started, I should tell you that although I may appear unqualified, I'm actually…"
"Neffer mind zat, let me zee your hands," he said, taking both of mine in his. "You haff fairy schmall hands," he continued.
God help me, it was out before I could stop myself. "Your mother didn't think they were so small last night when I high-fived her after sex," I said.
"No, no, zis is perfect!" he said. "Schmall hands is vat I am looking for. Also your hands are fairy schmoozh and zupple. You condition them viz an emollient, yes?"
"Every blessed day."
"Zis iss gut. Schmoozh and zlender fingers are required, as ve cannot use gloves. Such a barrier vould interfere viz the results."
"Of what? What are we doing here?" I asked.
"Vat I require of you iss to schticken your finger — vichever one iss appropriate, given ze creature's zize—up ze animal's butts."
He didn't say "interpolate the digital phalange into the rectum" or any other such science-y jargon, just that crude, bald directive.
"Vile I take photos of ze animal's faces," he concluded.
"In the holy name of St. Francis of Assissi, why?" I asked.
"Partly scientific, partly artistic. I belong to an organization vich traffics in such arcana. It iss quite ancient and revered, really beyond ze ken of ze afferage man. Vill you taken ze chob? I vill pay you twenty dollars for each successful insertion."
I held up my hands like a surgeon ready to be gloved up for duty. "When do we start?"
"No time like ze present," he said.
He extracted the badger from its cage and wrestled him into the restraining apparatus atop the golden pillar. "He iss mildly zedated, but not nearly enough to ignore ze finger up his butt!" he said gleefully. "For ziss beast, I vould zuggest ze middle digit. Here iss zum lubricant—not too much, now. Let me get my votographic equipment."
He extracted a Leica on a tripod and some professional-looking lights from a closet. "Vhenever you are ready!"
In all the extant literature about the public and private lives of badgers, there is not the vaguest mention of their feelings about having a finger stuck up their butt. Let this, then, be the definitive citation: They do not care for it. I got the distinct impression that that badger would rather have been nearly anywhere else in the world right then.
The photographer was snapping away merrily, capturing the badger's face from all angles. "Zat's right. Gut, gut. Pullen it out a little. Now, back in. Viggle it a little bit. Jah, dot's der schtuff."
I violated the sanctity of six other species that day, and hundreds more in the weeks to come. It all came to an end one day when a joint task force comprised of members of the FBI, ASPCA, Humane Society, and Homeland Security descended on the office, confiscating everything and arresting Helmut on a laundry list of federal charges. Luckily, I was out to lunch at the time.
I do hope all those animals turned out alright and homes were found for them. I understand most of them are being treated for PTSD; understandable, and I acknowledge and regret my role in those diagnoses. It's not a part of my life of which I am especially proud though I did make enough money to buy a new laptop and a pair of John Varvatos distressed-suede ankle boots.
My point, and I do have one, in relating that story is that when my workday was done, I wanted nothing to do with fingers in butts, of fingers or butts. If any member of my household—my girlfriend, cat, or hedgehog—had happened to require a finger-wave, I would not be inclined to provide it for them. As the man of the family, I would certainly be expected to render that service should it become necessary, but the odious nature of my livelihood effectively deleted that function from my repertoire as paterfamilias.
Returning now to my introductory proposition and query, 14 of my 20 respondents reported various occupations for their parents—your butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers—but six of them, fully 30%, were raised by teachers. Teachers. The darlings of the professional world, the mere mention of whose calling elicits praise and congratulation. Oh, you're a teacher. How wonderful. Bless you for your selfless work. Hah! Little did you know that even as our educators are molding young minds with one hand, they're filling up our prisons with the other. But really, can you blame them? In the trenches all day with a bunch of rotten kids, just trying to jam a little larnin' into their thick, unyielding skulls, and when the get home, what do they see? More kids! These kids are the butts into which the teachers do not want to stick their fingers, if you'll excuse the metaphor. The children of teachers go untaught and undisciplined, running amok through childhood until the system catches up to them in their majority and provides them with the structure and discipline so lacking in their youth.
We must, as Americans and concerned citizens, cork this pipeline to prison, and as the child of a teacher and thus a victim of this syndrome, I offer the following solution: Forced sterilization. Spay and neuter 'em like puppies! According to my totally non-scientific findings, this should reduce the prison population by a minimum of 30% in 20 years.
While we're at it, we may as well curtail the reproductive paths of some other questionable groups. Dodger fans, politicians, lifestyle bloggers, aestheticians, wine snobs, TV chefs, magicians and bass players should be sterilized immediately. I doubt there's actually any genetic basis to their twisted proclivities, nor will it impact the prison system in any appreciable way, but what the hell? Send a message that this sort of behavior, while permissible under America's umbrella of freedom, is nonetheless frowned upon by right-thinking people.
Whatever your occupation, don't let it negatively impact the growth and development of your cherished progeny. Let my experience serve as a cautionary tale to teachers and anyone else who feels their responsibility to their vocation ends at quitting time. Continue teaching for a little longer. Put some shoes on the little feet. Douse the flames in the bedrooms. And for cripe's sake, should your significant other require a finger up his or her butt, don't send them out on the street for it.
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