Locked up

Some stories stick with you and some stories go directly into the purge section of your mind. My 6 hour experience as the female DMX in Gwinnett County Jail during the 4th of July weekend in 2004 will forever stick with me because... What?? and How?? First of all, let me tell ya'll this. I grew up with A LOT of rules but the two rules that my parents never budged on were: 1) aint no sleeping over anybody else's house because we had our own beds and 2) If we go to THE prison, don't even call because aint nobody bailing us out. By the way, my mom was very adamant about "not messing with The prison" and she never just said prison it was always THE prison and by "The prison" she also meant jail or even a holding cell apparently. So here's what happened. As soon as I got my permit my mom bought me an extremely old Lexus. It was the worst car ever. It was always over heating and It spent more time on the side of the road as opposed to on it. I convinced my mom several months later when I turned 18 to let me get a brand new Honda Civic. It was cute. It had a sunroof and it was fast. Within 2 months of me having this car I racked up at least 10 speeding tickets. My parents paid for a few but after I kept getting so many, I just decided to toss them and keep on living. Anyway, one night my boyfriend at the time called me and told me to come over because his mom had made some squash casserole. I was like.. "Bet! I'm on the way". I hung up my flip phone and snuck out of the house. I realized that my temporary tag was expired so I took the tag off of my Lexus, put it on my Honda and sped down the street towards the casserole. Two blocks away from my boyfriends house I saw blue lights flashing behind me. My initial thought was I'll just explain why my Lexus tags are on my Honda and I wont say anything about the tickets but as the officer approached my window I knew I was going to jail.

I rolled down my window and said "good evening officer, you're taking me to jail tonight" and he burst out laughing. He was like.. why is that? I Then went on to tell him about my tickets and my tags and he confirmed what I already knew. He put the cuffs on me so loose that I could wiggle my hands out of them. He was nice but as soon as we pulled up to the jail, I lost it! I asked him if I could call my parents and he said yes. I knew I could only get one call so I did a silent prayer that my dad would answer. The phone rang twice and I heard a HELLO.. it was my mom. I said (while crying) "Mom, I'm in ja-" and all I heard was the dial tone. She hung up on me quick and that's when it really sunk in that I was going to have to stay there. I stood in a holding cell crying for 6 hours straight. It was cold. I had on some tiny shorts, my best friends cheerleader T-shirt and I had in an awful sew-in. It was a bob with the curls flipped out. I looked like the nightmare version of Kelly Rowland in the Dilemma video and not only that there was a prostitute standing next to me that kept saying "girl, it's better in here than it is out there". I was losing my mind. The cop that arrested me checked on me and told me that in an hour or so they would take me to the real jail and I would have to put on a jumpsuit. I was like.. WAIT A MINUTE!!! This isn't real jail???? There's more??? Then I became SUPER African. I started to call on Cheesus Lawd! About 10 minutes into my fifth mini meltdown of the night, an officer called my name and told me I was free to go. I walked out and my mom was there.

I learned several lessons that night. 1) Don't speed 2) Pay your tickets on time 3) My parents are generally right 4) Squash casserole is not worth going to jail over 5) a bob is not a good look for me and 6) I don't mess with the prison either.

I really hope that my future children wont have to learn some of the hard lessons I had to learn growing up but then again, life is full of crazy experiences that help us grow. I haven't had a speeding ticket in over 14 years so there's that!!