Stories from the pokey, volume two.

If one time in jail taught me anything, it was that I definitely did not want to go back. It also taught me drugs are bad and don't steal. The following story has nothing to do with the previous one, except for the bad timing and another trip to the county jail...

I was on my way home from a bar about three years ago, and wanted to drive the back roads to avoid the interstate construction (okay, I really wanted to avoid the cops, but whatever). Earlier in the evening I had a date, but it ended early and some of my friends were out at a bar so I decided to go meet them after he dropped me off. I had a couple drinks with dinner on the date, then at the bar with my friends I had some more, but I stopped drinking about an hour before the bar closed because I knew I had to drive 30 minutes home by myself. How responsible of me, right?

Anyway, back to driving the back roads... I ended up going through the tiny town I called home for 18 years, where there is literally one stop light and 2 gas stations. I got to a four way stop, stopped my car, then proceeded through the intersection. That's when it happened. This tattered black minivan smoked through the stop sign across the road, and I clipped his back bumper. I should probably mention that it's about 2:30 in the morning at this point, it's really dark, and there are no people for miles. I stop for a minute, then decide to drive a little way up to the school where there is a huge lighted parking lot to examine the damage.

All of a sudden, the minivan busts a U (I heard the tires squeal, he turned that fast), and the guy starts chasing me, swerving all over the road and flashing his brights at me. I'm freaking out, thinking there's a psycho behind me (I was actually right), and make it to the school, where he skids to a stop and jumps out of his car, waving his cell phone in the air, yelling, "I'm calling the cops!! I'm calling the cops!!".

Ok. So I'm 5'4", half the size of this dude (let me also mention he had to be at least 60 years old... what the hell he was doing out at that ungodly hour, I'll never know), and he's screaming at me like I'm gonna hit him or something? When HE ran the stop sign?? I walk a couple of steps closer to him, which was still about 8 feet away from him, and ask him to put the freaking phone down, since he was the one at fault, and he starts yelling to the 911 operator, "She's attacking me! She's trying to attack me!! Send help now!!". I shit you not. Let's just say there were two squad cars there in less than a minute, because all I'm sure they heard was that some huge bitch was attacking some innocent senior citizen in a parking lot.

The cops start to question me, and the guy is telling them that I was the one that ran the stop sign, then I fled the scene and once he pulled me over, tried to grab his cell phone and throw it across the parking lot. I swear, I've never met an actual lunatic until that night. The cops are kinda looking at him funny, and I can tell they believe me over him, but they still have to run our licenses and whatnot and file some sort of report since there was a collision. Fine, I hand over my license and the cop goes to the car to call it in.

You probably can figure out that I had a warrant. For an unpaid speeding ticket that had happened while I was evacuating from Hurricane Rita, two years prior. I had totally forgotten about it!! The cop was really apologetic as he told me I'd be taking a ride with him down to the slammer.

So, in the midst of me getting cuffed and stuffed, my friend shows up who I had called when the crazy guy was yelling at me before the cops got there. He's completely in awe... here he is, pulling up to a school parking lot to help me out, and he sees two cop cars, me getting cuffed, and a lunatic still yelling at me (but now he was laughing/yelling because I was getting arrested and thought it was justice being served). I just told my friend to somehow get my car and please come bail me out, like, NOW.

So, I get to jail, and the cops are nice to me and don't make me actually go in a cell. They do make me take the bobby pins out of my hair, in case I wanted to fashion a shank or something out of them, and then lead me over to take my glamour, I mean, mug shot. But for the 40 minutes I waited for my friend, the cops were all talking to me and being cool, and I didn't have to sit in a cold dirty cell, or even have cuffs on. I'm thankful for that. I'm also thankful they didn't make me do a breathalyzer... that could have made for a much more interesting story.

As for the batshit crazy old man... well, he called my house the next day and demanded I pay for his ancient minivan's damages. Said he had a copy of the 911 tape and everything, and I better pay up.

I told him to eat a dick.