The Sheltered Islander

By Sally Flynn

Reuters / Thu., Oct. 22, 3:15 p.m. ET

PALERMO, Sicily - A Sicilian builder transferred from prison to house arrest tried to get himself locked up again to escape arguments with his wife at home... Santo Gambino, 30, went to the police station and asked to be put away again to avoid arguing with his wife... Police charged him with violating the conditions of his sentence and made him go home and patch things up with his wife.

This would never happen on Shelter Island. Imagine a man preferring to be put in jail rather than be home with his wife.

Joe: Roger, did you see this article? This guy gets himself put in jail rather than hear his wife yammer on and on about nothin'.

Roger: Yeah? Jeannie's already bitching about me waking her at 4 a.m. when I go deer hunting.

Joe: Do you make a lot of noise?

Roger: Never. I tiptoe around, and get my gear, and guns. It's Terry. He wakes her up when he pulls up and the top lights on his truck cab shine into our bedroom. Then he comes in for coffee. He's not noisy, but sometimes we have to wake her up to find the filters, y'know...

Joe: Well, she can go right back to sleep.

Roger: She says the smell of the coffee wakes her up. I thought it was the bacon. Then she yips about not leaving egg dishes all over and starts rinsing dishes and complaining that it's now 5 a.m. and there's no sense going back to sleep since she has to get up at seven with the kids. Man, I can't want to get out of that house.

Joe: We all put up with it, man. You think they'd be appreciative that we're bringing home free venison. Jennie always rags on about how the venison is actually about $116/lb. She does this weird calculation thing, adds up the cost of my gear, guns, bullets, boots, knives, gas, everything.

Roger: You don't tell her the truth, do you? You always trim off 25% of the price of anything you tell your wife you bought.

Joe: I know. Otherwise the venison comes out to $182/lb. I'd never hear the end of that!

Roger: You know, we could get arrested together after deer season and share the cell.

Joe: That's not so crazy. We could do something to get jailed for two months, get three hots and a cot, and no complaining.

Roger: No lectures on not letting the baby play with the empty rifle.

Joe: No complaints about washing clothes with deer blood on them.

Roger: No one telling you not to throw your bowie knife at the shed door because someone might open it at that exact moment.

Joe: Women worry about the most trivial stuff.

Roger: I know. I always lock the shed door before I throw my knives.

Joe: What about the time you nearly clipped Tom when he opened the door?

Roger: That was two years ago. Besides, Tom is a big guy. The knife couldn't have gone in far enough to do much harm.

Joe: So what can we get arrested for?

Roger: We're a coupla bright guys-let's bring a six-pack and figure it out in the deer blind.

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