The Second Time I Went to Jail

Did you miss the first time? If so, you can read about that here.

Unlike the first time, I had grown up a little. I was 23, and was finishing my second year in graduate school at Indiana University. I was visiting my good buddy Cory in Ames, IA because his lady friend at the time was graduating from Iowa State. I missed her graduation. You can probably guess why.

On the eve of graduation at Iowa State, a group of us found our way to The Zone in downtown Ames. At the particular time that we arrived at The Zone, they were having a pretty amazing deal called "Penny Pitchers". That's right. If you had a copper, you got yourself a pitcher of beer.  

Of course, some rules applied. You couldn't order five pitchers for a nickel. You couldn't order more than one pitcher at a time, period. Whatever coin you had, you didn't get change. If you didn't have a coin, then it cost $1, because these bartenders weren't about to give you any change for a penny pitcher.  

This deal lasted only 1 hour. Our group covered our table with pitchers. We began to drink them. This is where the fuzziness started.  

One block over there was a karaoke bar called Tradewinds where I used to sing a lot while I was an undergraduate at Iowa State. Since I knew there was always a long line for singing at this bar, I told everyone I was going to go over and put my name in if it wasn't too long. "I'd be right back," I told them. Little did they know they wouldn't see me until late the next day. 

I walked over to Tradewinds and asked the lady in charge of karaoke how long the wait would be. It must have been really, really, long, because I didn't put my name in. It wouldn't have mattered, because I wouldn't have made it back to sing.

On my way back to The Zone, I crossed the street and noticed a cop car slowly making his way toward me. Officer Schultz pulled over and got out of his car to stop me. He had noticed me lean against a car as I walked across the street.  

After walking a straight line, touching my nose, and failing to give a specific answer to where I was going, I was handcuffed and put into the squad car. All I could tell the officer was that I was going back to "that bar around the corner with penny pitchers." I couldn't recall the name "The Zone." For the longest time, I believed that if I could have come up with this name, he would have let me go. But officer Schultz was on a power trip that night. 

To this day, I despise this human being. I'm not even sure that Office Schultz even qualifies as a human being. I've had day dreams of rising to a position of enough power where I could make a call and have this guy fired. But I wouldn't do it until he had a few days left until he was guaranteed some sort of pension. Only then would I fire him, and let him know it was me.  I could go on how little I think of this human being, but I won't. 

So, I spent another night in jail wearing an orange jump suit. After an eternity of a morning, we were ushered to the judges chambers. I remember the judge looking at my charge and saying "so, it says here you leaned against a car." I remember thinking about saying something like "yeah, pretty heinous shit, right?" but I didn't. I plead guilty and got the hell out of there.  

I wish I could tell you I learned a lesson from this. I'm not sure that I did. In writing this, however, I did come up with something that I can take from it now. No matter where you are at in life, you are inevitably going to have to deal with incompetent assholes. Such is life. There are incompetent assholes everywhere, waiting for just the right moment to make your life miserable.

Pick up the pieces and move on. After it has blown over, you'll at least have a story to tell.