Demonstrating ones intelligence.

My wife continues, in the face of all the evidence, to insist that Morgan is highly intelligent. Perhaps she is but she certainly doesn't seem to want to *use* that intelligence. What use being intelligent if you're not prepared to exercise it at least some of the time?

I mentioned in my last post that the little princess is currently in prison. I have to admit that I don't fully grasp the differences between being in gaol (jail) and being in prison here in the US. Nor have I found anyone who could explain the subtleties to me; somehow or other gaol is 'less' than prison. And when I express surprise that someone has been to either place I'm always left with the feeling of being incredibly naive; as though having spent a night in gaol, in particular, is a rite of passage rather than something to be avoided if humanly possible.

Or perhaps that's just me; the idea of being behind bars for even a day is something I'd really rather avoid!

So here we are, in what is the last week (according to the Arizona Department of Corrections website) of peace and quiet. I mentioned in the last post that the inmates contact list has to be vetted before communication is permitted; it seems that at least her two home addresses (ours and her fathers) have been approved, for small pieces of card of the sort once used in library catalogues have arrived, with incredibly small print in pencil!

The first arrived a week or so ago; Sonya drew my attention to it with the forlorn hope that I might care to read it. I didn't.

I gathered, from hints dropped over the next few days, that the pencilled epistles were full of regret for a life gone wrong garnished with many promises to do better upon release.

I've heard it all before, and so has Sonya. Not being the miscreant's father I can wallow in the luxury of disbelief; not so my wife. Oh, I'll be civil enough when she returns; I might even, if I had a good day at the office and a better drive home, greet her with something approaching cordiality. If we shake hands I'll be sure to count my fingers afterward!

Over dinner tonight Sonya related some details of the latest epistle directed toward her father. It seems that smoking is forbidden in prison. Hmm, so much for all those British movies where 'snout' is traded! Ok, I couldn't resist the temptation to use the word 'snout'. So much for all those Hollywood movies where the defiant prisoner rolls a smoke in the exercise yard. Anyway, the princess was suffering nicotine withdrawal until she was advised by fellow inmates that there was a particular place in the yard just out of sight of the guards where one could snatch a smoke!

I can sympathise with this. I am, as you well know, a devout smoker and, apart from long flights over oceans, I don't go more than a sleep without a smoke. Another reason, methinks, to stay out of prison, if you can't smoke inside em!

But what struck me as comical was the naivety with which this information was imparted, on a small piece of stiff card, written in pencil. Does she not think her written communications are vetted?

Intelligence has to be demonstrated!