It is January, 2009. I am sitting at a large circular table in a huge glass alcove with fourteen other strangers and a man in a very crisply pressed blue dress shirt. I am running my hands over the cover of an orientation packet for the large restaurant conglomerate that is about to employ me. I am being told what is acceptable for the limits of my uniform. When the meeting ends, I go outside into the swirling snow and get behind the wheel of my car and I drive it back to my mother's house. I am recently moved into her guest room at the age of 27 after trying and failing to make a life work for myself in Los Angeles. A few days after this meeting at the large circular table in the huge glass alcove with the fourteen other strangers who are about to become my coworkers, and this man in the blue dress shirt who is about to become my boss, I am to don all black attire and work the host desk for a large chain restaurant that is best known for its cheese-based cakes. My job includes showing people to their seats, cleaning high chairs, wiping menus, and being courteous to people who are hungry and angry and impatient and rude. I close my eyes and tell myself that I will do something with my degree.
That this is temporary.
That I learned a lesson after making a dumb decision and now I have to fix it.
That I will not take moving in with my parents lying down.
That I will not accept this.
Sitting at a red light a few months after the meeting at the large circular table in the huge glass alcove, I am pulled over after a cop comes up behind me at a red light. Upon running my plates, the police officer discovers that my registration has been suspended and so my car is impounded, my license is suspended, and I am arrested. I am taken to the police station for booking and incarceration. It is two-thirty in the morning. I am allowed to make one phone call. The call I place goes unanswered. The police officers smile and tell me that it will only take fifty dollars to release me. Jokingly, I ask them if they can take me to an ATM because if it's only fifty dollars, then shit, I can pay that myself. The two police officers look at each other and confer for a second, and then they agree to take me to an ATM. I am not allowed to have my belt back. I am not allowed to have my shoelaces back. And while my hands get to stay in front of me for the ride, they are to remain cuffed. They take me to an ATM not far from the police station. With my hands cuffed and my pants falling down and my shoes slipping off, they usher me out of the car and into the vestibule. They stand over me while I withdraw sixty dollars. They take me back to the police station, return all of my items to me and give me my ten dollars change, and call me a cab to take me home. I dress in one of the jail cells and think about what happens in the morning when I have to tell my parents.
Ten years is not so long ago, but I am thankful at how far away I am from that place.
That this is temporary.
That I learned a lesson after making a dumb decision and now I have to fix it.
That I will not take moving in with my parents lying down.
That I will not accept this.
Sitting at a red light a few months after the meeting at the large circular table in the huge glass alcove, I am pulled over after a cop comes up behind me at a red light. Upon running my plates, the police officer discovers that my registration has been suspended and so my car is impounded, my license is suspended, and I am arrested. I am taken to the police station for booking and incarceration. It is two-thirty in the morning. I am allowed to make one phone call. The call I place goes unanswered. The police officers smile and tell me that it will only take fifty dollars to release me. Jokingly, I ask them if they can take me to an ATM because if it's only fifty dollars, then shit, I can pay that myself. The two police officers look at each other and confer for a second, and then they agree to take me to an ATM. I am not allowed to have my belt back. I am not allowed to have my shoelaces back. And while my hands get to stay in front of me for the ride, they are to remain cuffed. They take me to an ATM not far from the police station. With my hands cuffed and my pants falling down and my shoes slipping off, they usher me out of the car and into the vestibule. They stand over me while I withdraw sixty dollars. They take me back to the police station, return all of my items to me and give me my ten dollars change, and call me a cab to take me home. I dress in one of the jail cells and think about what happens in the morning when I have to tell my parents.
Ten years is not so long ago, but I am thankful at how far away I am from that place.
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