Title: Marcie's brush with the law
Music du jour: Matrix soundtrack
Man, I have more adventures late at night, I swear. Last night's involved handcuffs. No, really. Cool, huh?
No, you sickos, that's not a veiled reference to my sex life. (At least, not this time...) I spent last night being a wanted criminal, hanging with the dregs of society. And I wasn't even at a Microsoft user group meeting. *ba boom CHING* I was, in fact, being given an up close and personal look at the Jefferson County penal system.
Let me explain. No, is too much. Let me sum up.
So Ian and I were heading back to the house from the movie theater, having taken in Wild Wild West and sufficiently drooled over Salma Hayak together, always a point of bonding for us. I was idly popping Milk Duds left over in my shirt pocket when the big red and blue lights started up behind us. Oops. Ian pulled over and rummaged around for the bits of paperwork that you can only find when you don't need to, which we handed over to the nice, square-jawed officer type. (Who was about the size of a side of beef, it seemed to me. He was so... clean-cut. Wholesome. Morally upright. Why, he was downright all-American.) The cop went back to his car, and there we sat, twiddling our thumbs and basically wasting time. Ten minutes later, here comes the cop again, asking for my driver's license. Okayyyyy... I wasn't driving, but the car is registered in my name, so, okay. I give him the plastic.
Ten more minutes pass. Officer Beef comes back to the car once more and tells me he has a warrant for my arrest.
"I have to take you in.""??!!!?"
"You have a moving violation in El Paso County that you never resolved, and the county has a warrant out for your arrest."
"?? But I paid that ticket!"
"Sorry, ma'am, I have to take you to Jefferson County Jail."
"*mumble* Okay, just give me a minute here..."
In reality, I was laughing my ass off. Just the irony of a no-life geek like me getting arrested was funny as hell. I was hoping they'd let me have a pen and paper so I could record the experience for posterity and Penguin Dust, but alas; the only paper I saw was the one my fingerprints were on.
So I left most of my stuff with Ian, since they were going to take it away from me when I got to the jailhouse anyway, and the nice cop patted me down, cuffed me, stuffed me in the car, and awayyyyyy we went. Yes, I was frisked and handcuffed. I swear this is true. You gotta watch out for those geeks, you know; we're dangerous when we're cornered.
Did you know it's very difficult to sit back when you're handcuffed and not sit on your hands? It makes your shoulders hurt like a bitch, too. On the up side, I amused myself by looking at all the nifty toys in Officer Beef's car. I hassled him by asking the question I've always wanted to ask a cop: "When you're on patrol in your car, right, and you turn out into traffic and people see you coming... does it amuse you when everyone around you slams on their brakes, even if you're not running radar? It would strike me as funny."
To which he kind of grinned and said, "Yeah, it does, actually."
I knew it. I wanna be a cop now.
Well, we got to the jail, where every bad jail movie I'd ever seen began making rounds through my poor little geek brain. My nice cop left me to the tender mercies of several women who looked pissed off at the world, including a short, squat cop who frisked me in a more leisurely manner than strictly necessary (although she still missed the necklace I was wearing -- heh heh heh). Several carbon copies of paperwork later, I was getting my shoes taken away, my hands inked up and my attitude adjusted by a blonde who I swear is a dominatrix in another life. "You do what I tell you! And don't get ink on me!" Yes ma'am. She reminded me of my TI in basic training. Ah, memories...
Soon I was chilling in a room with cinder block walls, a fashionable stainless steel toilet in one corner, and a bench and a phone in the other. They didn't even issue me a harmonica; I was so upset. I did have a cellmate, though. Her name was Ann. She was very upset at the local bondsmen for requiring a co-signer to bail her out. Her boyfriend was at home, but for some reason he wasn't going to show up. At least my SO was working on getting me out.
I figured since there was a phone in there, I got at least one phone call, so I tried to call home to see if Ian had accessed cash to get me out. Trivia point: Phones in the holding cells of the Jefferson County Jail only make collect calls. Another trivia point: US West automatically disables collect calls on your phone line unless you specifically tell them otherwise. You see where I'm going with this.
Nothing for it but to call Cynthia, since she was the only other person I knew would be up, and hey, what are friends for? Heh. (You know you love me, babe. Kisses.) Cynthia is most definitely my friend, especially since it was after three in the morning where she is by this time. I owe her sexual favors or something.
She answered the phone sounding somewhat confused, which is understandable, since there was a recorded voice whinnying loudly in her ear: "YOU HAVE A COLLECT CALL FROM <pause> Joy. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO ACCEPT THESE CHARGES, PLEASE HANG UP NOW. OTHERWISE, PRESS ZERO."
<pause>
"bleep"
"THANK YOU FOR USING FOOBAR TELECOM. GO AHEAD WITH YOUR CALL."
<pause>
"Hi Cynthia!!"
"Joy? Where the hell are you?"
"You'll never guess. Hear that echo?"
"... Yeah?"
"That's being caused by four cinder block walls, a concrete floor and ceiling, and that really cool stainless steel toilet in the corner. Guess!"
"Oh my God! Are you in JAIL??"
"Yup! Pretty cool, huh?"
At this point she started laughing, and I can't blame her. "What the hell did you DO??"
I explained my dilemma, and my dear friend Cynthia, the light of my life, my most loyal pal, continued to laugh her ass off. By this time I was cracking up myself; it really was funny. We talked until the little disembodied voice came on the line and scolded me: "You have one minute left to talk." So we hung up and I chilled for the next hour, the boredom broken only by the bitching of my cellmate as she chewed out bondsman after bondsman.
Oh... there was this brief interruption right around 3 AM. They pulled me out long to scan my fingerprints into the computer and -- waaaaaait for it -- take my mug shot! Somewhere in the depths of the Jefferson County penal system, there now resides a file on me, with my fingerprints and my picture in glorious black and white. Isn't that special?
My mother would be so proud.
Ian did spring me around 3:30, which was the earliest they would let him come get me. I had been hanging around the jail for about two and a half hours by that time and was starting to lose my jocularity somewhat, due to fatigue and flashbacks to basic training. ("STAND RIGHT THERE AND DON'T MOVE!!") Ian's friend Jason provided the ID (I owe this man a case of beer, at least), Ian provided the cash, and I was free. Yay. We went home and got to sleep around five AM. (And THAT, boss, is why I was late for work this morning. I swear.)
The moral of the story, kids? Pay your traffic tickets, lest you too end up in the custody of your local law enforcement. It only looks fun in the movies.
-- marcie.