Just a warm-hearted thank you to the lovely men and women who came together in peace and goodwill to show me the true spirit of the law and those that choose to serve it.
First, when I asked you to clarify my rights and you said, "That's it, you're going to jail, bitch," I felt fuzzy and warm inside. There was a little bit of poetry in the way you said it; it made me feel safe, like I was in good hands, Allstate style.
Second, when you found out at the station house that I was from the East Coast, and you started explaining how the East Coast is a cesspool full of lowlife thugs and mud people, well, that gave me faith that you aren't just small-town power junkies, but articulate, thoughtful, culturally aware gentlemen and women for whom I could freely have respect. Denigrating an entire seaboard takes courage and conviction, and I honor that. When I offered that perhaps that whole multi-state region could be better served by a more inclusive, less rigid appraisal, you told me that if I loved my bottom-dwelling brothers so much, I should go the fuck back there. Your well-worded affirmation of the myriad choices before me in this delicate life was appreciated.
Third, when you screamed "LOCKDOWN!!!" and yanked me backward by the arm, throwing me to the ground, and then dragged me into the holding cell, I was touched. People don't always go out of their way to make sure I am efficiently protected from whatever dangers may be lurking, and I thank you for your quick action. Who knows what could have happened if you hadn't been on the ball. Some asshole could have burst in and knocked me down on the floor. I could have gotten my jeans dirty.
Then when you pulled me back out of the cell and lied about how I had slipped on the floor because I was careless, I knew you were only trying to teach me something valuable about myself. Because, you know, in some other dimension, some day, I could be careless and fall over. It was an imaginative and compassionate metaphor for the risks or being hasty and unaware in the world, and I heard you loud and clear. You were just preemptively giving me a heads-up. I understand what you were doing there, and your sweet intentions have not gone unnoticed.
Sleeping on the floor next to the toilet was kind of fun. I haven't been camping in so long. Then, when you were discharging me and you told me I couldn't take off my cool orange sweatshirt and put on my jacket in the lobby proper because I was "wearing nothing but slut's lingerie" underneath it, I savored the poetry with which you (mistakenly) characterized my clothing. That I happened to be wearing a black t-shirt, not a peek-a-boo bra with nipple chain, is, I think, beside the point. Imagination is a vital currency, and your facility in this arena is, I'm sure, a great boon to your husband, in that you may see in his jiggling beer gut and dappled skin a sleek panther of a man, rippling with muscles and ready to fulfill your every desire.
There's so much more I could thank you for, but mostly I wanted to say for the record that when you saw me, you didn't just see me as another wayward asshole dirtying up your day. You saw into me--the soul of me, and treated me like a complicated, beautiful individual, not a statistic. Your laser vision will not go unrewarded in this life or the next, where I will be waiting, fresh-hearted and hopeful, to partake of the luminous aura of your great good nature. Until then, to all my friends, keep it up, and no matter how unique and intelligent and cooperative and seemingly well-intentioned your future charges are, treat them equally, with the same unwavering, unprejudiced focus of pure ignorance and evil. It's the beam of light that warms and warms.