Franklin: A Salt and Battery

Hai guys. This is Franklin. It's been a while since I've said anything.

I could go into a long soliquoy on why I said nothing to you fair people. Indeed, I could speak volumes of carefully constructed formal speech to convey my voicelessness. Unfortunately, my time share on this computer doesn't give me enough hours to brighten your day with profound and beautiful script.

You see, not too long ago I was having my daily stroll when I saw a house being painted. The house had been a pretty shade of white, but now was being decorated with a wondrous mosaic of strange symbols and oddly shaped characters. My understanding is that these are "calsigns" or "gang signs" and that this particular type of mural is called "graffiti".

As I approached the artistic group, the neighborhood police came to inspect the work for themselves. For reasons I guess only eccentric artsy types understand the budding muralists left with great haste, leaving me as the only person availible to help the police understand the deeper meanings of the semi-abstract art before me. They were so happy to have me availible that they took pictures, asked the residents of the house some questions about the painters, and then took me to the police station.

Actually, before they took me to the police station the police gave me a nice shiny pair of handcuffs along with a demonstration of how they could be used to restrain me. Before they put me in the back seat for our trip, they informed me of something I never knew. I had the right to remain silent!

This thought had never occured to me any time previously. I had long looked over this right because of a far better known right relating to the lack of monetary charge we have for speaking. Excited at the prospect of this new right, I decided to try it out right away.

Obviously the police were as excited as I was, because upon arriving at the police station I had all sorts of carefully constructed opportunities to not speak. All manner of questions and queries were given to me, not a single one of which I answered. They brought in lawyers, detectives, maybe an FBI or two (I think they were just faking it for me), and eventually a whole judge and jury! They even went to all the trouble to helping me sign up for some more community service! I'd been meaning to get around to that.

Anyway, it wasn't until recently that I decided I'd given the right of silence its due (I had a lot of years of talking to make up for) and I let myself speak.

So, remember this. Your local police are extremely friendly and exceptionally fond of good art. I have never seen such a dogged chase after eccentric artists since Salvador Dali left us all. They even helped all of them find community service opportunities too!

I know that I'm sleeping better tonight than I ever have, knowing that my country is policed by such men!