Day 5: I'm really in jail

Just as my roommate "Kelly with the hands shoved down her pants" had told me, I was soon moved out of the cell where I had to listen to swearing, shrieking and screaming that could have woken the dead. The officer (they're all nameless, nobody cares if we know who they are or not)  said a cell had opened on the F (female) pod and to grab my stuff and move my ass upstairs. Twenty six years of professional employment and never had anyone told me to move my ass.  I was clearly living on a different planet than the one I had lived on for almost 50 years.

Contrary to my belief, "moving my ass" did not include hauling my mattress, "boat" and pillow upstairs,  "Idiot, why would you think that?"   the officer who told me I was moving asked me.Gee, why didn't I know that the new cell upstairs had a mattress, boat, and pillow?  Duh. Is there knowledge that 'criminals' are born with?

So I packed up my very few belongings, and was told to go to Cell F32 of Female pod . I never thought of myself as a "Mother F...er" before, but my lack of knowledge of where CellF32 was located made it clear to the officer that I wasn't just a "Mother F...er," but the biggest,baddest "Stupid Mother F...er" on Earth.  As a dull, boring, shy, nearly-straight-A student from kindergarten through grad school, this label was so foreign to me that I wondered if I needed to adopt a big, bad persona just to keep myself safe in here. It struck me that I couldn't pretend to be that way no matter how hard I tried. No, I realized that I'd rather be known as "dull intellectual" than "Mother F...ing Criminal."