You know you live in Louisiana when...

...this is what you're buying at Wal-Mart:

Oh yes.

Bump It's.

Mousetraps.

Pregnancy test.

I've got flat hair, rodents, and I can't be reassured from normal pregnancy tests so I need the digital ones. Thank you, Elaine, for the baby fever that has descended upon our calm abode. Don't freak, I'm not prego, I just wanted to scare myself and maybe join the baby momma club the Louisiana way, unwed and poor as shit.

Will was acting all antsy during the purchase, and I thought it was because he was embarrassed that I got snippy with the sales clerk- note her long blue fingernails ("Can you please not touch those yet? I'm trying to take a picture"). Or maybe it was his dwindling tolerance of baby fever. But then in the car he admitted that he had been planning on getting me Bump It's for Christmas and now I had ruined it. Like I could wait till Christmas for Bump It's!

Don't Fear the Tarantula

I think motorcycles are very cool.

I like the way they sound: loud, guttural, moaning engine.

I like the way they look: sleek, powerful, fast.

I like the way they smell: the smell of escape and lawlessness.

I like the way people on motorcycles look when you see them riding free and fast on the highway or a country road: like rebel outlaws.

I like the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.

I like motorcycle pants.

(heck yes these are my purple and white leather motorcycle pants. best $11 i ever spent in an idaho antique shop. ever.)

I like it when I am sitting at an outdoor cafe and a motorcycle goes by, roaring through the street. I get goosebumps and a ripple of tension rises up my back. I might squirm a bit in my chair. I will turn back to my conversation with difficulty. "I'm sorry, what were you saying?" I will ask dreamily, distracted by the blatant sexual energy and the lingering ringing in my ears.

Once upon a time back in the Single & Fabulous days, I was trying to describe the particular blend of tough and gentle I was looking for in a man, and stammered, "I need a man like, a man like...a man like Uncle Jesse."

Yes, my motorcycle dreams are in no way complete without a thorough analysis of the influence of Uncle Jesse from Full House.

Homemaker.

Rock and roller.

Motorcycle man.

Remember when he was going to ride his motorcycle off the roof? Hot. Add this to the fact that recently he was playing an emergency room doctor on ER. Say it with me now: HAVE MERCY.

It should come as no surprise then that I have several long running sexual fantasies about motorcycles. In the main one, I am a bartender at Sturgiss Road Rally (if you don't know what that is... I swear... ). I wear assless chaps and make thousands of dollars a night in tips, and in this fantasy I have a perfect ass. In a music video-esque fantasy set to Bob Seger's "Roll Me Away," I am seduced by a bad motorcycle outlaw man. I mean a good bad man.

As the strains of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" (dun di duni dun na ne nuh) begin to soar I am wrapped around the thick middle of a bearded Hell's Angel, my hair flying straight back out from my head, not tangled in my face or sticking to my lip gloss, as we leave Sturgiss behind, headed west on the open road.

I really have that dream. Once I woke up from it and swore I could smell gasoline in my knotted hair. For a couple of sleepy awake moments I thought I had the ability to teleport into different realities while dreaming, which was Exciting. And then I remembered that I worked at the beach and it was just the fumes from the dinghy boat I drove all day, taxi-ing people to and from their boats in the harbor. Speaking of which...

There were some cool older boys who worked with me down at the beach. The fact that I just called them "cool older boys" obviously means they had a frightful power over me. Their seductive appeal multiplied when I learned several of them had motorcycles. And when I actually saw them on these motorcycles, my skin felt itchy and I felt a compulsion to do a keg stand immediately.

These were not just motorcycles, these were Suzuki crotch rockets. I would catch rides home whenever I could. I learned from listening to them talk that the key feature of "girls on the back of bikes" is how good they look from behind. Got it, I said to myself, squeeze with your thighs and stick your butt out. I learned that lesson quickly, but it took me all summer and one STD to learn the accompanying lesson that I didn't want to be the girl on the back of a crotch rocket.

And my parents learned the particular horror all parents of teen girls must know when their 18 year old daughter pulls into their driveway wearing only a bikini top and soffee shorts attached to the backside of a 21 year old with visible tattoos. As my little brothers crowded around the bike begging for a ride and repeatedly exclaiming that they cant wait to get a bike of their own, I met my parents wide worried eyes and said,

"What? I'm wearing a helmet."

These are the same parents who recollect that when I was a small child and still their only child, they would take me for long bike rides, strapped in to the baby seat on the back of their bikes. Before I could walk or talk I could unbuckle myself. My mom would feel little fingers tickling her shoulders and hair and peek around carefully to see me standing up in the baby seat with my hands on her shoulders, grinning, the wind blowing my wispy baby hair. So, really, nothing that followed in my lifetime should have shocked them. This baby was born to ride.

For many years after I admired motorcycles from afar. Occasionally getting a ride here or there. I was getting my need for speed on the ski slopes, which has its own breed of bad boy: the ski bum. You can't swing a ski pole around in Colorado without knocking over 3 stoned ski bums. I was going to say that you can't swing a bong around with around knocking over 3 ski bums, but that kind of goes without saying.

I repeatedly asked for motorcycle lessons from my parents for Christmas, and they repeatedly refused. My dad taught me how to drive his vintage convertibles, but it wasn't the same. I wore cute scarves in my hair, but ultimately I wanted to straddle the power, not clutch at it. I like the image of myself on a dusty desert road in a vintage Cadillac convertible, but I like the disturbingly sexy image of me in motorcycle pants a little better. Shaking my tousled hair out of my helmet in some tough road-side bar. Rolling down the highway out west. Legs akimbo over the bike. I needed to ride.

And finally we arrive at the point of the post:

When I was 24 and living in Chicago, I decided to treat myself to lessons. I got my manual early, studied it, highlighted it. I prepared a list of questions. I watched some you tube videos. And on the first morning of class, I listened to Blue Oyster Cult's 'Don't fear the reaper' on the way there. The first day was classroom. I was the only girl. All my fellow students were older men. We reviewed pertinent motorcycle laws and safety.

The second day was at the empty United Center parking lot. We picked out helmets. We stood by our bikes. We named the parts on the bike. We practiced getting on and off the bikes. Turning the bikes on and off. Balancing your weight on the bike. Then we did drills. Rolling forward. Gear changing. Going straight from cone to cone. Stopping. Pausing and then going forward again. I felt silly, but I felt hidden from my own silliness because I was wearing a huge black helmet. There were two instructors, both good looking men wearing leather pants and boots. They had my full attention.

I sensed flirtation when Instructor Jeff came over to specifically educate me on how women were actually better motorcycle riders than men, because our center of gravity is in our hips, and then he rocked the bike back and forth while holding onto the belt hooks of my jeans. The helmet knocked dorkily back and forth loosely on my head.

I was also glad to be hiding in the helmet when they sent an older man home because his skill level was not improving. I was sad remembering how excited he had been in the conversational ice-breaker go around about why we wanted to learn to ride motorcycles. I watched him walk away with his head down, and then turned my attention back to learning how to turn with renewed focus. I did not get sent home, I did awesome (duh). I was so good at all the curvy obstacle courses they set up for us, I got to be the Demonstration Rider from then on. I'm sure this had nothing to do with Instructor Jeff's crush on me. It was my mad skillz. After two days I took the road test and got my motorcycle license. Just as I had expected, I had learned how to ride a motorcycle. I did not expect to go on a date with the teacher, but I'm a roll with the punches kind of girl.

If a 40 year old man (you guessed it, Instructor Jeff), who happens to be a tattoo covered Chicago Fireman, an ex-Marine, and a Northwestern grad, who just taught me how to ride a motorcycle asks me out for a beer, I'm going. I'm already there. An older, smart, military/medical man with a wild side is just what I'd been looking for! He didn't have hair like Uncle Jesse, but you can't get everything you want. I was willing to make some compromises.

Throughout dinner and drinks that night Jeff kept squinting at me with his head cocked to the side and insisting that he had met me before.

"No, no I don't think so" I'd say.

"No, I'm pretty sure I know you from someplace" he'd insist.

I was pretty sure this was impossible, considering I couldn't think of a single thing we had in common besides the fact that I wanted to date someone like Uncle Jesse and he vaguely fit that description. We moved on to talking about work. For some reason, maybe the macabre sense of dark humor, nurses and firemen get along really well and like to trade stories about work. After a few go-rounds about precipitous baby deliveries, I asked, "So... where's your fire house?"

When he told me, I slammed my beer bottle on the table and shrieked, "You mean the one right next to La Pasadita Burritos!?"

10 months earlier, I had performed life saving CPR on a cook at La Pasadita late one night, after he was shot in the chest during a robbery. I recalled that it had taken 18 minutes for the police or firemen to respond, an especially long time considering they were right next door.

"That's it! That's how I know you! You're the hot nurse from the burrito place! I was there! I saw you! I talked about you all night."

Yesssss.

I sucked in my breath. I was happy to be called hot. Now the locus of power had shifted away from him, who had it first because he was old, to me, who now had it because I knew he found me attractive. I was hotter than he was old.

Besides acknowledging to myself that the power balance had shifted, I could not believe my luck. This was turning into the greatest "How We Met" story ever. Earlier in the evening over chips and salsa I had allowed myself to imagine listening to our friends toast us at our wedding for meeting at motorcycle lessons, and had a minor vision of roaring away from the front of a church on the back of a motorcycle in my wedding dress. And now this! Now he had previously desired me from afar while I was engaged in heroic, noble life saving? This was too much.

I went to the bathroom and looked at my face in my mirror. Was this the face of someone who marries a 40 year old? 'Maybe,' I thought as I started to see it, 'yes, I think I could do it.'

Despite all this opening promise, our second date turned out to be our last. It started innocently enough. He picked me up on his motorcycle. At the time I did not see the irony of how getting my motorcycle license had led to me being the bitch on the back of the bike, yet again.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"It's a surprise," he said, as he helped me buckle his helmet onto my head.

"How romantic!" I thought, as I placed my arms around his middle and snuggled my helmet face into his leather jacket. It was a perfect October Indian Summer fall day, and we went for a long, windy ride. I was eager to see what the surprise destination would be. I imagined we might be going to the Indiana Dunes lakeshore for a picnic, and squeezed the saddle bags with my shins to see if I could feel a blanket and bottles of wine.

Or maybe we were going to get ice cream at a small diner in rural Illinois, or maybe to a fancy store and he's going to buy me a dress. All these things would have led positively in his favor to me sleeping with him. I thought sophisticated dates as aphrodisiac's were one of the potential perks of dating an older man. Thank you, Tom Selleck cameo on Friends.

My reverie was interrupted by all the pot holes we were driving over, as we turned and slowed in the warehouse district west of Damen Ave. He zig zagged with the bike to avoid the large shards of broken glass in the street. I frowned inside the helmet. This did not look good.

What could we be doing in this part of town?

'Oh no, I'm probably going to be killed,' I thought to myself dully.

Optimism kicked in...

Or maybe he's going to show me a large artist loft he bought for dirt cheap and reveal that even though he's only known me a week, he can't live another day unless I consent to quit my job and devote my life to decorating it? This had been another potential perk of dating an older man that I'd considered.

We slowed and stopped outside a large, nondescript building. There was the faint smell of animal in the air. Maybe we were going to one of these abandoned warehouses to watch the circus rehearse, I thought with a renewed flame of hope in my chest. He remembers that I said my greatest dream is to run off and join the circus!

I shook my long hair out of the helmet as sexily as possible, like I knew I was supposed to do, and asked, "What are we doing here?" with a ridiculous flirty smile beaming across my face, still holding out for a dream date and glad this wasn't all being filmed for The Bachelorette, which was increasingly being suggested to me as possible way to meet someone.

Jeff: "I've gotta talk to this guy about my new parrot."

Maux: "The surprise is you are getting a parrot?"

Jeff: "Yeah."

Maux: "Oh, okay."

Like I said, I'm a roll with the punches kind of gal. Albeit, one with an active imagination. As we entered the warehouse through a somewhat secretive door, I had visions of having to ride home with the parrot perched on one of our shoulders, like pirates.

Maux: "Like today, now, you are getting a parrot?"

Jeff: "Well, I don't think it's here yet. I've got to check in with the guy."

Thus began my foray into the illicit underground world of parrot smuggling.

The inside of the warehouse was filled with large cages of squawking birds in vibrant colors. I wandered around picking out my favorites while Jeff talked to the Parrot Guy about cages, food, toys, blah blah blah. It should probably be mentioned here that the Parrot Guy did in fact have birds perched on his shoulders.

(this is not the Parrot Guy, but the imagery is correct)

Eventually Jeff came and found me looking at the parakeets.

Maux, making Awkward Date Conversation: "So, do you have any other pets?"

Jeff: "Yeah, two dogs, a cat, I used to have some other smaller birds, also I've got (....wait for it....wait for it.....) a 12 foot boa."

Maux: "You mean, like, a boa constrictor snake?"

Jeff: "Yeah."

Maux: "A 12 foot boa?"

Jeff: "Yeah, Mom."

Maux: "Your boa is named Mom?"

Jeff: "Yeah."

Still rolling with the punches, I say, "Oh, so you like animals."

Jeff: "Yeah, and I also breed tarantulas."

This is the first moment the word "WARNING" started flashing on and off in a dim area of my mind I often ignore. But because I am a person who was raised to have good manners, with the attendant social etiquette of being able to quickly think of interesting questions to ask people about themselves, combined with a dirty mind always thinking about sex, instead of fleeing I instantly asked,

"How do they breed? Do they mount?" While making what I imagined to be spider sex motions with my hands, interlocking my fingers like 8 spider legs and slapping my palms together.

I never got the answer to the breeding position question because I quickly asked another, far more pertinent question related to my phobia of hairy spiders.

Maux, breathing shallowly: "How many tarantulas do you have?"

Jeff, boastful: "Oh, about 80-ish."

Then, and only then, did I realize it was never going to work out between us.

Not the fact that he was 16 years older than me, not the fact that he was engaged in parrot smuggling, not the boa named Mom, not the fact that he was only 10 years younger than my mom, not even the ownership of tarantula's; with enough single desperation I could possibly have overlooked all of those things in light of how perfect he seemed for me on paper. And not just overlooked, I could have made those unique traits thrive in a good cocktail party environment.

It was the plural suffix "ish" that did it for me.

If you have tarantulas in your house, I think it is essential to know exactly how many there are at one time. I must insist that this cannot be a gray area. Maybe he was a young 24 year old backpacking through Asia in 1990 when the movie 'Arachnaphobia' came out, but I certainly was not. I was an impressionable 8 year-old happy to finally know the clinical name of my condition.

I was incredulous when he next claimed not only to never have seen the movie, but never to have even heard of it. A tarantula breeder being unaware of the movie Arachnoaphobia was just preposterous, and the fact that this conversation was taking place amidst cages of dozens of exotic, tropical smuggled toucans made it even more surreal.

"Why do you breed them? For fun?" I asked fearfully.

He then detailed for me how financially lucrative tarantula breeding can be, and seemed especially proud of himself that he bred a rare Venezuelan tarantula that was blue in color. How had this information not come out over margarita's and mexican food?

I tried to remember if any of his tattoos were of spiders.

"Are any of your tattoos of spiders?"

The answer: "Just two of them."

NEXT!

While he finished up the paperwork with the parrot smuggler, who still had two birds perched on his shoulders, I contemplated. I thought it lucky that we had only met in public places. What if I had gone to his house, unaware of the tarantulas? Perish the thought! What if I had spent the night and woke up in the morning, and while groggily walking to the kitchen for orange juice had made a wrong turn at the living room and ended up in a room full of tarantula cages? Or stumbled upon it en route to a post sex tinkle? Thank god I have morals, questionable though they may be! No sir, no sleeping with anybody on the first date here.

Sweet Jesus, look at what I just found a picture of on the internet:

(a spider breeding laboratory! gasp-shudder-vomit-cry)

I should have handed him my helmet right then and there, walked out, and taken the bus home. But noooooo. Stupid manners win again. I let him finish up his toucan smuggling and then take me home on the bike, the motorcycle pockets bulging with brightly colored wooden toys he had bought in anticipation of his smuggled parrots homecoming.

As I swung my leg over his bike back in front of my apartment building, he asked when he could see me again.

"I'm pretty busy this week with work, I'll call you" I said as I backed away slowly.

I went inside to take a nap. I was exhausted. Dating is so exhausting. There are just so many freaks. Later that night I had a nightmare about waking up chained to the wall of his garage by my wrists while he placed 80-ish tarantulas all over my body and Mom the boa waited in the wings to snuff the life out of me, with a row of Harley's gleaming, while 'Don't fear the reaper' played top volume so the neighbors couldn't hear me screaming. And who would come rescue me anyway, his friends the police? I woke up in a sweat, thinking I could hear a parrot squawking. But it was just my cell phone vibrating with a text message from Jeff. Did I want to come over? No, I'm sorry, I do not.

Prison Is No Place For A Lady

FAIR WARNING: ADULT CONTENT BELOW

In honor of my Halloween costume, here is the story that inspired it!

Short version: I was arrested for public drunkenness on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, LA and went to prison. They made me wear an orange jumpsuit that said INMATE down the side and my cell mates were murderers and they kept me for 24hours and my cell mates yelled at me to stop crying.

Will's version: Maux talked back to a cop.

Long version: See below.

Many of you have not heard from me in several days, and you may have been thinking to yourselves, 'It's not like Mo to be so quiet, she must be having so much fun in New Orleans for Jazz Fest, good for her!'

Wrong.

Turns out, no respectable weekend in the Big Easy is complete without spending some time in prison, and that's exactly where I was. I was in PRISON, wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that said INMATE down the side...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I think things might have started off down the wrong track (right track? wrong track? Sometimes it's so hard to tell the difference) straight from the airport, after my cousin Beth and I were picked up by my friends, Suzanne (fellow travel nurse I met in Seattle) and George (her husband, native to NOLA). Those of you who were at my "Sink the Houseboat" Halloween party will surely remember them. They own a condom company and were the ones giving away porno DVD's and sex toys as treats. They are the best possible tour guides for a weekend of debauchery in NOLA.

We went straight to the DRIVE THRU daiquiri stand, where I soon had a 32 oz Long Island Iced Tea frozen daiquiri in my hot little hands. Double shot. For those of you less familiar with drive-through bars, 32 oz is the Super Size, and about the same size as a Nalgene water bottle. I had two.

Note to self: On Sundays, the gallon size is only $17.00

Legal clarification: It is LEGAL to drink daiquiri's in your car in New Orleans as long as you are drinking out of a straw.

The night proceeded from there in normal New Orleanian style, and before long we found ourselves at Pat O'Briens, the famous piano bar in the French Quarter on Bourbon Street, drinking a disgusting Hurricane and dancing to some zydeco music. I know it's touristy and thus wrong, but it was Bethie's virgin voyage into NOLA, and we thought an obligatory stop in the French Quarter was in order. Preservation Hall, birthplace of Jazz music, was our intended destination, but the dueling pianos at Pat O'Brien's proved a siren call impossible to ignore.

In the interest of full disclosure, let's talk about what I was wearing. I was wearing the same silver and gold plaid romper I wore to the Yacht Rock party and a fairly high pair of platform wedge shoes. For those of you who do not know what a romper is, number one: I pity you, and number two: it is an article of clothing that conveniently and fashionably combines your top and your bottoms into one, perfect for romping around. This particular romper was composed of a strapless top attached to a pair of short shorts. I have always been a classy dresser, and this was no exception. I was accessorizing with a pair of sunglasses detailing two breasts with silver rhinestones for nipples bursting out of a black lace bra. My outfit communicated to the world: this girl is here to party!

Yes. That is my leg in the air.

I was already drunk when I got dressed, hence the necklace that doesn't quite match but is fun because it's enormous. Don't judge. In the past I have struggled with admitting that I am intoxicated when something bad happens, hoping in some small way to reclaim my dignity by pretending that I was sober and thus a victim not an instigator (Claiming I was sober when I fell down the stairs at Rachel's wedding and broke my foot, I'm looking at you).

I'm not going to lie here: I was drunk, bottom line. However, when you examine my level of drunkenness comparatively in the company of Bourbon Street- easily the drunkest street in America- my intoxication is nothing but a small puppy. A small puppy walking around bumping into things is cute, isn't it?

Was I wasted enough not to be fit for the streets? Debatable.

Let's put it to a poll.

Is this person unfit for the streets?

I think she looks pretty interesting and if I saw her on the street I would

a. want her romper

b. want to be her friend

NOT

c. arrest and torture her.

The details are a little vague (translation: there are moments of blackness), but we find ourselves leaving Pat O'Brien's in a little bit of a huff because the couple sitting next to us wanted us all to sit down quietly and stop dancing. Apparently these people were unaware that they were on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jazz Fest weekend? Apparently they were unaware that they unwittingly sat down next to me, known to literally swing from chandeliers and scurry up ceiling beams like the acrobat I am when whipped into a dancing frenzy. It was calmly suggested to our table that we might leave, and we calmly obliged, too cool for that touristy place anyway.

There we were, just standing in the street discussing the matter calmly with the doorman at Pat O'Brien's. George is engaging the manager in a discussion of economics; consider how many drinks have been purchased by our table, and can reasonably be assumed to continue being purchased at the same rate and speed, compared to the two drinks on the elderly couple's table. If you follow that proof through to the conclusion, the answer is that, reasonably speaking, they should be asked to leave, not us. This advice was not going over well.

From the swampy bayou mist, two police men enter the scene.

Before anyone knows what happened (ok, I'm sure someone somewhere knows), George is in handcuffs across the street. Bethie, Suzanne, and I, like women everywhere whose male chaperone has just been handcuffed, start pacing, panicking and fretting. I make the fatal mistake of walking over to where George and the police are standing. I just had to get involved. I just had to try and reason with the officers. Before you can say Pirates Alley I find myself wearing charm bracelets as well.

At this point you are saying to yourself, 'Cut the crap, Mo. What did you really do?' Anyone who has actually been to Bourbon Street is rightfully incredulous.

No one wants to believe that I literally walked out the door of Pat O'Brien's and into a pair of handcuffs. I know it is hard to believe this innocent portrayal of my behavior, but it is true. I thank you for the high regard you have of me. However, this was a random act. A random act I tell you! I had never been arrested before. To quote Garth Brooks, "It was bound to happen, and one night it did." It could have been Bethie, it could have been Suzanne, but it was my time to go.

Let's quickly cut back to Will's interpretation of events: "She sassed a police officer, that's what happened." Will wasn't even there.

A police officer, using the chain between my handcuffs to swing me around, indelicately placed me in the back of his squad car and took me down to the OPP: Orleans Parish Prison. I remained in the handcuffs for about two hours, being moved from room to room and cold metal bench to cold metal bench by a gruff, angry, post-Katrina traumatized police officer grabbing my handcuffs and dragging my stumbling person around. I was NOT DOWN with the OPP.

I was a ridiculous spectacle of shimmery short-shorts romper, platform shoes, mascara all over face. A crying, blubbering mess asking anyone who might pay attention to her why she was being arrested. They removed the handcuffs briefly to make me put on an orange prison jumpsuit that said INMATE down the front and back. Normally a romper / jumpsuit combo would excite me, but not so much in this particular circumstance. (A further note to those who didn't know what a romper was: a jumpsuit is like a romper, but traditionally with long sleeves and pants). During this time I get the first glimpse of my cut, bleeding, and bruised wrists. My crying increases somewhat (read: I am hysterical and now start yelling that my grandpa is a judge).

They put me back in the handcuffs and I wait around some more. I repeatedly tell police officers that I am a nurse and "just trying to come down here to help, I have a job interview, don't you know you have a nursing shortage, and this is how you treat me?! huh, huh?!" By job interview I meant that I was going to drive past Tulane University and Tulane Medical Center and check them out.

"You're drunk," the police officer replied disgustedly to one of my outbursts. "ISN'T THAT THE POINT OF BOURBON STREET?!" I shouted back. This behavior resulted in the prisoner population of Central Booking cheering, whooping and hollering, but it won me no favors with the side of the room armed with guns, badges, and the keys to my handcuffs. Either way, I felt a little better. I felt like a revolutionary leader of the People.

By now it was about 2 am and they decide they don't really want to do anything with me until the morning. They remove my cuffs and let me in to the sleepover party that is Central Lockup, Orleans Parish Prison. Allow me to educate you a little about Orleans Parish Prison. A simple google search revealed to me that this is, in fact, the deadliest prison in the U.S. I wear this fact with a perverse sort of pride. It wasn't the easiest way for me to earn street cred, but that's the way street cred goes.

Click HERE to read the article titled: Death Rates at Orleans Parish Prison Ranks Near Top.

This is where the story takes an ugly turn. But also, in a sick way, this is where the story begins to get really good (Rachel is thinking to herself that the story took an ugly turn back when I put that romper on). The room is small and stereotypically prison-esque: cement walls and floor, several metal benches, poor lighting, the obligatory bars at the front of the cell, and three small metal toilets flagrantly out in the open. My cellmates are CRAZY. Cra-ha-azy. Wild eyed homeless women, violent women, drug addicted women, women lacking a full set of teeth, women who smell bad. I have never found myself in worse company, and I tend to get around. There are about a dozen of us in the female side of central lockup. The male side, where I have glimpsed the also-incarcerated George, is packed full with about 60-something men.

I pace around crying and hugging myself for a couple minutes, then put myself to bed on a metal bench, curled up into a ball inside the shirt of my oversize jumpsuit, because it is freezing cold. I wake up at 7:30am, partly because they said they would let me out at 8am, and partly because there is the familiar feminine sensation of, 'Holy Shit! I think I just got my period.'

It's true. I did.

And it was getting all over my gold and silver Topshop romper underneath my prison jumpsuit. What fresh hell is this? Waking up hungover in prison is a rather disconcerting experience. You have to ask yourself: Wait, What the Hell Am I Doing In Prison? What the Hell Happened Last Night? Then you have to contend with your favorite romper being ruined.

As I rose into a sitting position, one of my fellow cellmates looked over and said, "Oh look the hellcat's awake. White girl. Cryin' all night, shiiiiit." I nod at her wearily. As discretely as possible I clean myself up and fashion a pad out of toilet paper. During this time I was still trying to put together all the details of what happened the night before. Like a fairy tale, I find a note in my pocket from Beth.

I lean on the bars and try desperately to get the prison nurse's attention. I cringe remembering scenes from the night before. I pace around nervously. The nurse refuses to give me a tampon or pad. Apparently they think I will be able to fashion a weapon, a shim perhaps, from the cardboard tampon applicator and escape. In an interesting side note, one of the nurses was easily 450 pounds and absolutely the fattest person I have ever seen in my entire life. George concurs. So I sit and wait. 8am goes by. I take a drink from the rusty water fountain in our cell and one of the prisoner ladies tells me, "I sure wouldn't do that if I was you...people doing nasty shit to that water fountain." Thus ending the first and last hydration I am given for the entirety of my stay with the Louisiana Prison system.

I wait.

9 am goes by.

10am goes by.

I lay down again in my little space on the bench and the woman whose butt my head is closest to says, "Watch out girl, I got real bad gas."

I wait.

11am goes by.

The sheriffs patrolling this little section of hell on earth treat the prisoners coolly. They do not acknowledge that we exist. They do not make eye contact with you, they do not listen when you call out "Excuse me, excuse me" from the bars of the cell when they walk past. No one tells me what is going on. I have still not been officially booked. I'm not even sure exactly what I've been arrested for. Lady Justice, where are you?

I wait.

Something itches me in my bra and I reach in to find 60 dollars and my drivers license. Apparently I was hiding these things from the police officers last night. Clever move. A memory surfaces of Bethie and Suzanne emptying my pockets of lip gloss, cell phone, and camera for me while I stand incredulously handcuffed by the side of a police car right before the officer threw me in the back saying, "Let's go cupcake."

Noon comes and goes.

Lunch comes- it is a baloney sandwich. I wanted to eat it, because I knew it would add just one more disgusting link in this story chain, even more street cred: "I ate a baloney sandwich in prison and liked it." But I could not make myself do it. When George and I compare notes later, he says he didn't want to eat the sandwiches either, he wanted to be like the Hurricane, "Refuse everything they offer."

I am now regretting that I do not have the ability to say I've eaten prison food.

I wait.

1pm.

Nothing happens.

It is not until two in the afternoon... 2PM!... that they finally take me out of the cell and over to the booking agent, where they book me for public drunkenness FOURTEEN HOURS after first arriving at the station. Hmmm...arrested at 11 pm April 30th......I wonder if these kind officers had quotas to fill? Officer Spooner, of the New Orleans Police Department, I shall remember your name.

Sheriff: "Why haven't you been booked?"

(Maux, to self: Oh, I'm sorry, was that my responsibility? Am I both sheriff AND prisoner?)

Maux, as surly as possible: "I don't know."

Sheriff, frowning: "And you've just been sitting in there this whole time?"

(Maux, to self: Um, hello yes I've been sitting here this whole fucking time!)

Sheriff: "You should be released in about an hour."

I soon realize that "you should be released in about an hour" is just something cute that sheriff's say to fuck with you. She takes my mug shot picture, and I am able to stop crying long enough to glare at the camera.

I'm proud of how pathetic I look in this picture.

After getting booked ('This is just like Law & Order,' I think to myself 'where the hell is ICE-T with the evidence? I sure wouldn't mind seeing some Eliot Stabler.') I get my phone call. I call Bethie & Suzanne, who, even though they met only hours before we were arrested, have embarked on a Free Mo & George project together all night and day.

"I think I'm getting out in an hour," I say

= Famous Last Words.

George, on the other hand, never got a phone call. His was revoked when he was caught talking to me through the bars; a mutual exchange of "what the fuck is happening to us?" After the phone call I tried to sit down on the chairs and pretend like I belonged out there with the sheriffs, but they put me back in the cell. It was probably my inconspicuous neon orange jumpsuit that gave me away. This is when I had what can be termed a minor breakdown. Having to go back into the cell made me feel very powerless.

"I hate these nasty ladies. We should just kill everyone in prisons because they are nothing but trouble," I thought to myself, not realizing that at the moment that included me and that sentiment is also known as genocide. I literally wanted to kill everyone in my sight. I felt like I was having trouble expanding my chest for deep breaths. What happened next was so perverse and crazy I was able to imagine myself looking down on the scene from above and I had to admit that I would find it humorous, so that calmed me down a little bit. Sometimes a prison bitch just needs to get yelled at to put things in perspective.

Picture this: There I am, clutching the grimy prison bars with both hands, sobbing, my little shoulders in my oversized INMATE jumpsuit quivering. My cellmates form a semi circle around me, and some of them start yelling at me to stop crying. They divide themselves into two camps: those who are yelling at me to stop crying, and those who feel sympathy for me.

The yelling camp:"What the hell you cryin' bout white girl, you in here for public drunkaness, I in here fo murda!"

and

"You only just got here, shiiieat I been in this room since Monday."

The sympathy camp:

One woman, who by her outfit I guess is a prostitute (the jumpsuits were actually hard to come by but much appreciated because prisons are freezing), nicely rubs my back to console me while another woman with tattoos on her neck tells the others, "Leave her alone, it's her first time, she jus' scared."

I decide I like the lady who rubbed my back, and I take naive comfort in the fact that the sheriff said I was going to be released soon.

Then, as if we don't have enough problems, some crack gets smuggled into our cell. Oh, you heard me, I said CRACK.

Mo' prisoners, mo' problems! The main prison is upstairs, and male inmates do janitorial work down here in the booking and processing center. One lady, who has ripped out a piece of the weave in her hair and has been waving it around and pacing all over the cell while simultaneoulsy scratching furiously at her crotch (and not from outside the pants, but with her hand deep inside her pants) and telling another cell mate of ours (they all seem to know each other and know the names of the guards) how much her "pussy is killin' me all the time, but not when I fuckin." This was all charming. I contemplate offering medical advice ("Umm, you're fucking disgusting") but decide against it since I can see how exposing myself as a nurse might lead to an ugly chain of events involving breast exams or STD counseling. The itchy woman tells the janitor/prisoner that we need toilet paper. It's true. The toilet paper is gone, these other women not being shy about using the communal toilets. And when I say they were not shy, trust me that I mean, with grave seriousness, They.Were.Not.Shy.

Apparently, asking for more toilet paper is prison code for: Please, Sir, Smuggle Us Some Mothafuckin Crack. I witness the male janitor prisoner pull a flattened roll of toilet paper from his pants and pass it through the bars. My cellmates scurry to the toilet area, which is partially obscured from view to people, such as police officers and sheriffs, in the cavernous main room. They miss all of this since they never pay enough attention to us in the first place. We're just a wild pack of human beings in a cage. I watch as they remove the crack paraphanelia, lighter included, from within the smooshed toilet paper roll, and all of them smoke it in front of me. Note to self: crack smells nasty. I contemplate telling the guard so I can earn good brownie points and get released, but reason that since I am locked in a cage with these women they will probably kill or harm me first. With respect for the prisoner code of ethics and honor, I keep quiet.

"Huh, so this is what it looks like to be on crack," I think as I take it all in. They run around the cell, screaming loudly, ripping off their jumpsuits, and yelling obscene sexual obscenities at the guards. They lean on each other with comraderie and laugh hysterically at nothing. Some pass out. They take bites of the baloney sandwiches lying about and spit them at the walls. Some of them dance. It is while watching one of my favorite prison ladies crip walk across the cell with her eyes half closed that I have a vision.

What if I could get these women choreographed into a dance routine, like the Phillippino prisoners doing "Thriller" on You Tube? We are all wearing the same orange jumpsuits they wear. Alicia later suggests the song should have been Beyonce "Single Ladies" for obvious reasons. I don't have enough enthusiasm to actually do it though. This brief fantastical reverie is the only joy within this whole ordeal. Otherwise, I alternate between despair / crying / longing for freedom and strong / noble / proud "keep your head up and survive" mentality. I stare at my bruised wrists and imagine the looks I will see on my patients faces back at work as I lean over their children and respond to queries as to how that happened when I say, "Oh, just handcuffs."

I have never been more bored or felt like I was wasting more time IN MY LIFE. I just sat there all day: no books, no cell phone, no texting, no computer, no friends. I say to my prostitute friend: "I thought prisons had libraries, I thought prisoners read books, like even encyclopedias, all the time? Why hasn't a library cart come past?" I spend long hours fantasizing about a bath tub, about pizza, about warm sun on my warm free skin. I found myself humming the Paul Simon song with the lyrics "they...shackled myyyahhhh hannnnds" (Adios Hermanos).

I spend a lot of time feeling disappointed in myself. This seems to be the pinnacle experience of "If you can't be a good example, be a horrible warning." My self esteem suffers. When I tell Maggie about this ordeal later, she says, "I know you feel badly about this now, but there is a part of you that is glad it happened because you're going to write such a funny story about it." I have to admit this is true. The only consolation I had was the perverse feeling that the worse the experience gets, the better the story gets.

2pm goes by.

3pm goes by.

My prostitute friend starts crying so I rub her back and say "Shhh, there, there, it's going to be ok. Shhh, I know, I know, tell me all about it, there, there."

4pm goes by.

5pm goes by.

6pm comes and goes.

I cry a little when they take everyone out of the cell who was going to be released except me. I contemplate strangling myself with my strapless bra if they make me stay here one more night.

6:30- 8:00pm: Lockdown time. The guards take their slow ass time changing shift. I attempt to sit in a yoga pose on the floor and deep breathe, but it's hard to sit in lotus pose when you are still wearing platform wedge shoes from the night before and are worried about your makeshift pad leaking on your prison jumpsuit (Now that's a sentence!). Going barefoot was absolutely out of the question.

8pm comes and goes.

9pm comes and goes.

Finally at 9:30PM the great State of Louisiana decides to release me from prison. My name tinkles like a pretty bell on the releasing officers lips when he calls it out. Hurriedly I remove my orange jumpsuit. Some of my cellmates witness for the first time what I have been wearing underneath. The mean ones who had yelled at me earlier for crying get all up in a fuss again.

"Oooh oooh oooh look at this, she ain' in here fo no public drunkaness, she be prostitutin.' "

They laugh in my face, but I don't care because one of us is getting out, and that would be me and my romper wearing ass. I wanted to keep the pantsuit, for several reasons, but they would not let me. Here's why I wanted it:

1. It was actually was a great shade of orange.

2. It had INMATE written down the side in black bold letters, which I thought would make them fantastic pajamas and/or an excellent addition to my costume collection.

3. Wouldn't you want to keep your prison jumpsuit?

4. I am embarassed about the blood on my romper crotch.

My prostitute friend checks me out and assures, "Honey, it ain that bad." Degradation complete, I am processed through the remainder of the prison system. I get a little baggie with all my jewelery inside. Thirty minutes later I find myself sitting outside the prison, having borrowed quarters from a crack dealer in the street to call Beth and Suzanne to pick me up. I wait on a bench outside the prison, the scene illuminated by a lone streetlamp like a perverse Norman Rockwell painting.

A woman approaches me asking if I can bum her a cigarette. I can't, but she tells me she is here to pick up her husband, arrested the night before for throwing a string of beads off a Bourbon Street balcony to her below, and accidentally hitting an off duty cop who then had him arrested for assaulting a police officer.

What the hell is going on New Orleans? Seriously, New Orleans Police Department, what is your problem? Are you honestly the worst people on Earth? First you abandon the city during Katrina, and NOW THIS SHIT? Has New Orleans lost its edge? Did all the normal criminals get drowned in the flood and now they have to start arresting tourists? This cannot be a sustainable business plan.

Two obviously intoxicated men arrive in a taxi. They rush in the building, then rush back out. They look left and right in the street.

"Were either one of you just released?"

I raise my hand, "Me."

They chuckle, looking my Walk-of-Shame outfit up and down.

"Did you get released with a black girl, dreads?"

Maux, to self: (Hmm, which one?)

"Recovering from a stroke, good at crip walking?" I ask.

"That's her."

"Yeah she's out," I say with some bitterness, pointing "She went that way."

Don't tell me you don't know what crip walking is. here's a visual:

I manage to reserve telling these frat boys, 'Oh yeah, I've seen her. Seen her on crack.' Sub-question: what are these frat boys doing with the crack head crip walker? They bum the wife a smoke and listen to our wrongful imprisonment complaints.

The red-headed one: "Oh come on, I've been to jail lots of times, it's no big deal. You know why they kept you so long, right? Obama gives New Orleans so much money, they get money each time they say they fed a prisoner a meal. That's why they kept you for almost 24 hours, 4 meals."

Maux, incredulous: "Are you saying this is Barack Obama's fault?"

"I'm saying you've got to forgive New Orleans! Come back! You've got to come back!" They shout from the window of the cab as they peal off in the direction of their crip walking friend.

At the opposite end of the block, our rented minivan screeches around the corner.

Their plea must have worked, right? I mean, I live here now, don't I?

PART TWO, THE AFTERMATH:

At the opposite end of the block, our rented minivan screeches around the corner, filled with Suzanne, Beth, and the new arrivals to our entourage: Suzanne's brother Steve and his girlfriend, Audrey. Nice to meet you! Sorry I'm covered in blood and just got out of prison! Luckily, Amelie, Suze and George's 5 year old daughter, was still with her grandparents and cousins so she didn't have to witness this late-night prison pick up. There is a group hug and some pitiful crying.

Beth: "Has your spirit been broken?"

Maux: "No. No, it has not."

We go home, recapping and reconciling recent events from the inside jail/ outside jail perspectives. I take a shower and eat an entire Domino's pizza. I had not had anything to eat or drink in over 24 hours. There were dozens of missed calls and texts messages from Will, worrisome back in California.

Will: "Babe, where have you been?"

Maux: "Babe, I was in prison."

I expected to see George at home, because he was led away by the releasing officer hours before they let me out. Somehow, he is still in there. He comes home a few hours later, and arrives at the door looking sheepish and ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous! Normally quite the dapper dresser, he is wearing the following: his own white Bucks and argyle socks paired with a small pair of neon green basketball shorts and a small striped polo shirt. Adding insult to injury, it appears that the prison guards stole his clothes.

We woke up on Saturday and remembered, 'Oh yeah, didn't we come here for Jazz Fest?' We salvaged the weekend and had a great time. I forgave the city of New Orleans for stealing a day of my life. Did you hear that, Big Easy? I forgive you, you Sultry Beast.

Although I vowed to myself in prison that I would never drink alcohol again, at least for a whole year, I found myself being pressured into, what else, another frozen drive-thru daiquiri stand on Saturday morning as we waited to board the St. Charles streetcar.

When we got on the trolley I poured a little bit of my daiquiri out the window on to the grass, in memory of my fallen homies still locked up.

I got to stay an extra day, since I had to change my flight for a court date on Monday afternoon. I couldn't miss my court date, or they would issue a warrant out for my arrest. Which would have been exciting, but ultimately irresponsible. At the court, however, there appeared to be one small problem. It turns out that Public Drunkeness is NOT EVEN A MISDEMEANOR OFFENSE in the state of Louisiana. The city attorney called me into a small room next to the judge's bench and explained that they were going to rescind the charges if I paid a $200 bond fee, and $225 in 6 months to have the records expunged. The lawyer caught a glimpse of my bruised wrist and raised his eyebrows.

"The handcuffs did this," I said with indignation.

"Make that a $100 bond," he said.

Deal.

Note to ignorant future self: An arrest for an alcohol related offense doesn't exactly look good on an application for a new nursing job.

"Am I pleading guilty or non guilty?" I asked.

"Neither. This didn't happen."

Oh, really?

I paid the money and got the heck up outta there.

I got a cab from the courthouse to the airport, and the cab driver, coincidentally both a social worker and law student, asks me if I myself am an attorney. I can see how he would think that, me being a well dressed smart looking young woman standing with luggage in front of the courthouse.

Maux: "No sir, I was a defendant."

Cabdriver: "What for?"

Maux: "Public drunkenness, Bourbon St."

Cabdriver, laughing: "That's like getting arrested for prayin in church!"

He doesn't believe me until I show him my paperwork.

Cabdriver: "But public drunkeness isn't a misdemeanor in New Orleans."

Oh really, so I've heard.

I run into an ER doctor I know in the airport, and he asks why he didn't see me at the riverboat show Friday night.

Me: "Well, I was in prison"

Him: "But public drunkeness isn't even a misdemeanor in New Orleans."

Hmm, you don't say.

I am woken from my much needed nap on the plane by a stewardess frantically calling on the overhead for any doctor or nurse on board to immediately come to the back of the plane. The same ER doctor and I assist an elderly woman having trouble breathing. In exchange for my medical skills I was given a coupon for $100 off my next United Airlines flight. Karma alert: that's exactly the same amount I had to pay for my Get Out Of Jail Free card.

Will and I live in New Orleans now and we were an OPP prisoner and a policeman for Halloween.

The picture is blurry because there wasn't a sober person around for 10 miles to take a clear picture. Check out the fierce handcuff necklace. Happy Halloween