There I was, standing at the toilet, withered wiener in hand, giving the governor a drink. Up to my cell door strutted the extremely important Lieutenant Irvin Elder, or maybe he's a colonel, he sure acts like one. Two steps behind him timidly shrunk a lowly prison guard, scribbling the almighty's pronouncements onto a tremulous clipboard. "This is called taking a leak," I informed the Lieutenant whose face was pressed tightly against my door. He seemed so enchanted and curious that I added: "do you need instructions?" "No," he blustered. The little secretary wrote down "no!" "Then how about giving me a minute?" I asked thinking that most men would prefer to engage in conversation after toilet functions were finished. "No!" Lt. Elder enunciated even more emphatically than before. "I can look into any cell at any time!" That may be true, but few men, even very important colonels would want to prolong a "look" into a lengthy, inspection, but to each his own. While the flabbergasted corrections officer penciled "no!" on his clipboard and while I shook and flushed and buttoned, Irv Elder bellowed into my cell while watching me with inordinate interest. I'm not really that fetching. The matter that couldn't wait the conclusion of my elimination exercise was about bed linens; surely a subject meant for a very important prison official. I certainly don't mean to infer that body functions or excreta hold any special interest for Lieutenant Irvin B. Elder. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste or sensitivity, but I admit that he's the only fellow I've come across who insisted on engaging in chitchat about bedding while I was hosing off the porcelain, but, as I say, to each his own. I acknowledge that Irv is a special type of correctional poopah. He purports to be an expert on old prisoners' heart conditions and has made a practice of obtaining confidential information from medical records. He's a very important person. Two matters rivet his attention: clotheslines in cells and ice cream carried on the prison sidewalk. He's emphatic that prisoners must not carry ice cream along the prison sidewalks. This is absolutely essential! No one knows why. As for clotheslines, either they aren't allowed, or they are, I've never been quite sure and even a person as important as the colonel isn't sure what we should do with our wet clothes. But Lt. Elder makes frequent tours around gazing into the cells looking for clotheslines or something.