jail and Aspies

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I almost got escorted to the police station to spend the night in the cells. But because I kept on repeating that I had Asperger's syndrome and that I didn't expect the police to understand but it made it really difficult to make friends, that was why I had been writing graffiti on walls such as "I need friends" accompanied by a sad face.

I got swore at and treated nastily for a while by the one police officer. Afterwards when they deciced not to take me to the station after threatening to do so and convincing me they were going to, the abusive police officer was smirking at me, and told me to go out there and make friends and influence people.

I spent a few nights in jail.

I'm from chicago but had been living in tucson for a few years. When I moved down I registered my car and got a new license in Arizona but forgot one thing. In illinois you have to have your car's emissions tested every few years for pollutants, you get a reminder in the mail letting you know when. The system that checks your car for emissions is completely separate from the license system and I didnt know I was suppose to contact them to inform them that my car was no longer registered within the state after I changed it with the DMV.

Notice after notice came to my mom's house but she threw them all away thinking they were garbage as I hadnt lived in the state for a few years. I was actually in the middle of driving cross country when I got pulled over for speeding in Nebraska, and was arrested because my drivers license was suspended.

Surprisingly I didnt panic at all, I had no clue what so ever why my license was suspended. I knew there had to be something logical to it.

What made things so bad was I was a thousand miles away from the closest person I knew haha. After a few phone calls with my mom she figured it out as she had a recent reminder for her car's emissions and saw on the back there is a little tear off post card to send it that says "please send this in if your car is no longer registered to your name or no longer registered in this state."

Now what came into me having to spend a few days is a not so amusing story. It was a friday afternoon when I got arrested, of course they have no ATM machine at the police station and wont let you just write a check for the bail, which was just $250. But they were set up to take Western Union so I had my mom do that. She WU the money that night, they told me since it was done post 8pm they could not retrieve it so I would have to wait until the morning. That morning they told me it had never been done and I had to contact the person sending it to confirm it and redo it. It took them about 10 hours to get back to me with the answer that "oh, she sent it to your name, not the county police department like she was told." I called my mom back (luckily they had a pay phone in the cell, how convenient) and she told me she sent it to the write name and had the receipt of it. I informed the people in the station (and this was all done through a sophisticated system where you yell out the front of your cell loud enough so they can hear you, and they respond back through a speaker system in the cell similar to the ones they had in grade school classrooms) that it was sent to the write information and I was told I would have to wait again until the next morning because it was too late to retrieve it. I was told sunday morning everything was fine and I was released.

The car impound lot was not open on sundays so I could not get my car out. Mom came to rescue again as she is luckily a secretary who does travel plans all the time so she was able to book a room for me at a holiday inn just a few blocks from the jail. I went back to the impound lot (and luckily the jail, impound and holiday inn were all within about a half mile of each other) on monday and I was informed the police notified them that I was arrested on a suspended license so they could not release my car to someone without a valid license, and I was not even allowed to go get anything out of it like a freagin change of clothes because too many people will go take the important stuff and leave the car forever.

So my sister came to the rescue. Luckily she is like me and loves to drive cross country so took it as an opportunity to do so. She drove out tuesday, we went in, she drove it off and down the street a block where she parked, and off I went back home. My mom was yelling at me on the phone to just go to a local store and give someone $20 to drive the car off for me, i dont think she realized how utterly impossible that would be for me to do. Let alone that I was in a town of maybe a few thousand people where surely everyone knows everyone and would not be easily fooled by me coming in after being denied once with someone w/a local license. AND that I was very clearly in meth-center USA and not just going to hand my keys over to some random stranger at a 7/11.

I later informed a friend of mine of the situation and he laughed at me saying "dude, dont you know that they'll give you a speeding ticket for going 3mph over the limit in nebraska?"

And I simply told him "no, no one ever told me that"

I've sometimes wondered how I would get along in prison, even though it's unlikely, me being a boringly law-abiding citizen.

In some ways I think I would do pretty well: I lived alone for a long time, so could stand solitary; I'm good at doing what I'm told and following orderts to the letter and not having to use any initiative.

But I know it wouldn't be that easy. Jails are all about power relationshops between inmates, and I wouldn't last 5 seconds - as soon as someone up the hierarchy clocked I was shy, introverted, different, 'easy', then they'd take full advantage and try and dominate or bully me. I'm usleless at standing up for myself.

Prison may be an occupational hazard for some people, but for most, and especially for aspies, I'd imagine it's hell, and perhaps that's how it's supposed to be.

i think cops (aussie cops) are really getting smarter, they are much better trained and i have caught on to their phsycology, i think i would get too guilty if i was forced to do a "major" crime, so hopefully i won't get framed lol