I Got Sent To Jail On My Birthday
- On April 15, 2011, I spent my
21st birthday in jail, this is that story.
Thankfully I can laugh at this story now,
but there was some real serious consequences
that are still following me to this day.
If you're turning 21, have fun but
please, please please be smart, here we go.
So, I was a student at the University of Oklahoma,
and they are very strict about drinking.
I mean, the whole state of Oklahoma is.
I'm not hating on Oklahoma, I loved Oklahoma.
I loved going to school there,
the state itself was beautiful and
I was turning 21 and I was stoked to
graduate from house parties to bar crawls.
Not only was I turning 21, I was turning 21
on a Friday which I thought was totally awesome.
Campus Corner Thursday night,
birthday dinner and party Friday night,
hanging out and playing video games
with friends the rest of the weekend.
It's my 21st birthday, I know I'm gonna be
a little bit irresponsible so I at least
wanted to do one responsible thing that night.
I parked my car at my buddy's place,
who lived a couple of blocks from Campus Corner,
so that way we could walk from his house,
party it up, and then I could just
crash on his couch that night.
So it's the night of my birthday,
my car is parked, me and my friends
we shimmy over to my favorite
taco spot on Campus Corner, Fuzzy's,.
We let our bellies full of dang tacos, some queso.
Okay, so when you think about it,
it's kinda weird that we celebrated
our 21st birthday by seeing how much
alcohol we could consume before blacking out.
That's like turning 16 years old,
and saying oh boy, I'm gonna get
six cars and speed 120 miles an hour
down the highway 'cause I got my license.
The plan of tacos and queso was great.
It lasted me through three margaritas
and a couple of tequila shots.
At this point, I was starting to
enter the brownout phase, which in
Clark's dictionary means the moments
leading up to inevitable blackout.
So after the clock strikes midnight and
I am officially 21, I get a call from my sister,
which I don't remember and she said
I was very, very, very, very excited,
like Tom Cruise jumping on a couch excited.
- Katie once told Seventeen Magazine-
- Yes!
- Midnight to 1:45 a.m. are a little hazy.
But when I finally reentered my body,
I was peeing in a parking lot, peeing on the parking lot.
Here's Fuzzy's, the taco place,
here's my car, here's Clark, maybe
a quarter mile from his apartment
peeing in the middle of a parking lot.
And I forgot to mention, but uh,
this just wasn't some like random hidden parking lot,
this was a church parking lot.
I am peeing in God's parking lot.
In my head, I'm in the clear,
'bout to finish my leak, everything went pretty well,
and then I see these tinges of blue and red
out of the corner of my eye and
I hear a deep booming voice, you all right there, buddy?
Shit, yep, it's the cops, so I'm
pleading with them in some sort of
mumbled gibberish, tellin' 'em how it's my
21st birthday and how I did a really
responsible thing, (slurring) at least I didn't drive,
at least I didn't drive, in the cop car all the
way through getting processed through jail.
Jail, yep, I was booked into IRL jail.
Not the drunk tank, we're talking Shawshank Redemption,
Orange is the New Black, Oz level jail.
And to add icing to my birthday cake,
since I was arrested early Friday morning,
I wasn't gonna see a judge until Monday.
Which meant I wasn't just spending my
birthday in jail, I was spending the
entire birthday weekend in jail.
At the time I didn't really register how badly I screwed up.
I didn't think that my phone would be ringing nonstop,
that I supposed to work at the equipment cage on campus.
There were classes that I would be missing.
At some point, late Thursday night,
early Friday morning, I must've
fallen asleep or blacked out or both.
I woke up under a scratchy wool blanket,
on a metal bunk bed, inside of a withering, gray jail cell.
And I was wearing what I think you could
best describe as traffic cone orange
like, nurse scrubs and crocs.
This truly was prison and my heart
started sinking into my chest, shit.
Suddenly, I hear this gravelly, Josh Brolin
soundin' voice from the other corner of the room,
morning princess, sounds like you had fun last night.
I have a cell mate, of course, I have a cell mate.
So I turn my aching head and I look at this dude,
leathery skin, popcorn kernel yellow teeth,
sunken in cheeks, this big bushy beard that
I'm pretty certain you could hide a knife in.
Great, this is it, this is jail.
I was locked in here with my cell mate.
No one ever prepares you in life
what to talk to a cell mate about.
Who's your favorite character on Parks and Rec?
What's your favorite sports team, how's the weather?
Okay, so quick pause, because this is
the part of the story that is disturbing
and it involves animals and if you've
seen any of the videos that I've been in,
you know that I love Corgis and kitties and
little piggies and any other thing that's
cute and adorable and I really, really, really
hate this next part of the story, um so here we go.
I decided to strike up a conversation and
I asked him what're ya in here for?
Please don't say murder, please don't
say murder, please don't say murder.
I got caught fuckin' a goat.
What, my cell mate, the guy that I'm locked in this
little box with, is an actual bestiality offender.
I'd hoped that I was massively hung over,
because the extent of what I could actually say
to him was something along the lines of, gotcha.
So I rolled back on my back, stared up at the
metal bunk bed and just sang myself
Happy Birthday. ♪ Happy Birthday to you.
Several hours pass and lunch finally came.
I lined up, got my tray from the correctional officer.
It was some super stale cornbread, this like,
meaty goop that I don't even think a dog would eat.
I'm scanning around the room,
I'm seein' these dudes with the
long scraggly hair and their big scraggly beards.
I look just like these dudes.
I'm hung over, I'm feeling like death,
I'm looking like death, what am I doing with my life?
I could tell that it was kinda turning to night
because a little sliver of light that was
coming through in each jail cell was
turning from milky white to this deep rich purple.
Another correctional officer walks in and
starts listing off names: Davis, Johnson, McCaskill.
(gloomy acoustic guitar music)
McCaskill, is this good or bad?
I followed the officer with hesitation,
and then he told me that I was going to be
having a webcam session with the judge.
Holy shit, but you know, I had to keep it
cool because you know, prison.
I talked to the judge and she said that
what I did was really, really stupid and
not something to take lightly,
but also not something to spend the
entire weekend in jail for and
that I would be released that night.
I actually cried, I cried in front of the judge.
I was just so relieved and so happy.
I sign my paperwork, get my belongings,
get outta my God awful crocs and my orange scrubs.
So I walk outta jail, it's like seven p.m.
But I'm still way too nervous to
turn on my phone because I had a lot of missed calls.
I get to my car, I drive home, and
I go to bed in my room without a cell mate.
And that's how I spent my 21st birthday in jail.
(soft guitar music)
