Loose Lips . . .

. . . I won't finish the sentence, people, because you all know what loose lips do. They suck. They suck just like the person who read my last post and went out and started blabbing all about it up and down the landscape, so that now I've got the federal government up here running an investigation into my labor practices.

These DOL people . . . arrgh! Give them a reason to get all up in your bidness, and they never let up. Sniffing around The Compound with their clipboards and Geiger counters, handing out self-help/report abuse pamphlets to all and sundry, hassling my guard dogs. It's just unbearable.

The simple fact is, Diego and Felix tried to rip me off, and in exchange they got to spend a nice couple of weeks kicked back on a couple of pristine almost-new Army issue cots, with three squares and forty-nine channels of cable television wired directly into their cells. So they couldn't come and go as they pleased. Whoop-dee-doo. Based on the on-demand charges I'm seeing on my cable bill, these hombres weren't exactly lacking for entertainment. Plus I bet if you went to these two guys' apartments, you'd find beds there that aren't as luxurious as the cots, and fewer channels on the TV set. How can it be an illegal labor practice to lock a worker into a room that, by every measurable standard, is nicer than his own house? Not to pile on, or to be snarky, but I'd wager dollars to doughnuts that the living conditions in my Detention Facility rate at least two stars higher than any veterans' hospital in the Lower 48 (I won't speak for Hawai'i: I hear it's lovely there). Get your own house in order first, U.S. Government.

It's just so frickin' absurd. And now I'm either going to have to bribe these inspectors or swallow a citation and consent decree — not a desirable result either way. All this because some Brother or Sister can't read my confidential communications and keep His or Her mouth shut about them.

A blogger's relationship with his readers, like all relationships, is built on trust. Someone's gone and wrecked that trust, and now I'm in a snit. And I won't come out of it unless some critical mass of my Loyal Readership sends me chocolate and Hickory Farms gift boxes in the mail (links provided). And at least one of those three-way cheese/butter/caramel popcorn tins you get at Christmas. In the meantime, consider this blog's Candor Level dialed down to Need To Know Only.