I have already told you of how my life of crime was over before it began thanks to an ill-fated attempt to steal a flashing orange traffic barricade in the dead of night with a bunch of friends when we were teenagers.  But that was not my only brush with the law.  In my 30s, well let’s just say I was fond of adult beverages, so fond that I was arrested twice for driving under the influence.

I’m not proud of it, but there you have it.  These days, I’m a bit of a lightweight.  And I don’t drive.  Just last week, I had one glass of wine when I went out to dinner with some friends at Lulu California Bistro, and I was home in bed by 8 o’clock – completely knackered.  But back in the day, I could put ‘em away.  The night of my second DUI arrest, I blew a 0.21 on the breathalyzer; the legal limit in California is 0.08!  The cops were right to get me off the road, before I hurt myself or someone else.  It’s not like I didn’t understand the difference between right and wrong; that drunk, I’m not even sure I knew the difference between right and left!  So I deserved to be arrested.  “It’s a fair cop,” as the English say.

My lawyer argued for leniency on the basis that I’d never been in trouble with the law, but this fell on deaf ears as the prosecutor pointed out that I had, in fact, been arrested for DUI once before; we were, however, able to persuade the judge to allow me to make use of the California Penal Code’s “pay-to-stay” program.

The option to “do your time” at another jail, for a price, began in the 80s as a way to fight overcrowding in county jails, but became increasingly popular with inmates who risked violence in the traditional prison system (this might include homosexuals, celebrities, and people of a particularly young or old age).  California’s penal codes give this option only to people convicted of misdemeanors in the same county as the jail, and nearly 79% of participants had been sentenced to jail time for DUIs or other driving violations.  Make no mistake – it’s still jail, it’s just not the county jail.

I did some research and decided on the Pasadena city jail in Pasadena, California, famous for the nationally televised Rose Parade on New Year’s Day.  Not only because I went to school nearby and so knew the area and was comfortable with it, but the building looked “nice,” sortof like an upscale Holiday Inn Express.  I called and “booked” my stay; since I’d been sentenced to four days, they gave me the option to do it all at once or split it between two consecutive weekends – I chose the latter.  They told me to report by 6pm on Friday evening.

When I arrived, I was led by a very masculine lesbian officer into a windowless room with an outline of two feet painted on the floor.  This lesbian was so “butch” she made me look like I’d just come in from sashaying through the town square wearing a floral frock with a frilly parasol even though I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and standing silent and still on account of being completely terrified.  She told me to strip naked and stand on the two painted feet, then conducted a very thorough strip-search to ensure I wasn’t smuggling contraband into the jail.  This was utterly humiliating.  And the fact that it was being done by a lesbian made it doubly so!

During my humiliation I noticed a set of four shelves along one wall, labelled S-M-L-XL; on them were jumpsuits in three different colors:  hunter green, navy blue, and what I can only describe as CalTrans orange (CalTrans is our state’s highway maintenance organization, and their employees wear bright orange shirts on the roads so as to stand out for safety).  Orange is not an attractive color.  In the right conditions when used as an accent, as it is here at Stonewall Gardens where I live, it can be alright; but on its own, it is loud and gaudy, like that flashing orange traffic barricade we tried to steal as teenagers.  So while Mister Missus was examining every inch of my body for god knows what, I was already thinking ahead and decided to tell her I didn’t want an orange jumpsuit.

When she’d finished her inspection, she told me to put my underwear on and asked me what size I wore.  I told her “small” (well that was true back then!) and added, “I think I’ll go with the blue, it compliments my eyes.”  She flashed me a rather incredulous look, saying as she did, “look twinkle toes, I’m going to explain something to you, so listen up:  green means INS [the old name for ICE]will be here in the morning to take you back to Mexico, blue means you’re staying for awhile as a guest of the city of Pasadena while you await trial, and orange means you can go home on Sunday night.”

Cowering naked under unflattering fluorescent lighting, I timidly managed to squeak, “orange please.”  Why are lesbians so scary?