I Would Be Your Buddy If You Were Under House Arrest

The electrical leg bracelet thing would be the hardest hurdle, I think.

That’s why I’d try to get your mind off the fact that if you walked out the front door your body would possibly be shot up with like 100,000 volts of sharp, pain-inducing electricity. I’d try to make a game out of it like Dance Dance Revolution! You know, we’d jump on our left foot, then jump on our right, but when you jumped on your right foot (the one with the 100,000 volt house-arrest ankle band on it) I would fall to the floor and feign like I’d just tripped. Everytime you’d step on that foot, the one with the electrical band, I’d fall again. Periodically, I’d jam my head into the corner of a table or bend my leg backwards on the television.

You’d laugh every time. And before long, you’d associate that leg band with laughing.

Ordering food would also be a great fun exciting thing to do. We could pick up a phone book and go alphabetically for about 12-18 months (according to the courts). Each day, we’d go one step further and see if they delivered. Hoo boy, and when they got to the house we’d have you answer but tell them that you couldn’t step outside because you were under house arrest and I’d be taping their reaction on one of the Canon SL-1 Digi-betacams you still had left from the heist that got you in this position. Then, we’d take all the reactions over the course of six months and edit them on your brand new computer (again, from the previous thefts you were nabbed for) with the song “The End” by The Doors. We would, at first, be somber as we realized how their faces were made to look even sadder from the music and it would, deep down, convince you that there were other people out there with lives that sucked even more than yours.

And that, my friend, would make you even happier.

There would be times when the two of us would be at eachother’s necks. You would argue that I never took you out to meet my friends, or even invited them in for some Orange Chicken or Chicken Pad-Thai. You would wonder where I went when I left the house and was gone for hours. No matter what I told you, you’d still get angry. I would threaten to sit outside in the yard with Pizza Hut’s New York Style Pizza and never bring it to the foyer. Your mouth would water and then we’d laugh and you’d jump up and down, eventually landing on your right foot — and then I would bang my head into the crown molding on the floor.

These would be good times, my friend. Damn good times.

There would, of course, come a day when the courts would remove the electrical tracking/punishment band around your right ankle and you would fly out the door like a bird learning to fly for the very first time. You would indulge in all things foreign and some things not. You would meet up with your old friends and share stories.

For me, our friendship would probably end at that point, and I’d just have to go back to hanging out at the courthouse again, waiting for a new friend to flash a smile or scream an obscenity. Eventually, before too long, my friendship would transfer to another poor soul, whose leg would be wrapped in electrical wires and threatened with the punishment of 100,000 volts.

And those would be the good times, people. Damn good times.