my ma- back by popular demand

my ma got busted yesterday and hauled off in handcuffs. petty theft and trespassing. she said she looked awful in the mugshot and complained about the number of fingerprints the police took.

four cops put her in a squad car with the windows rolled up and left her there for bit. she said they were "messing with her probably" because they were just sitting around talking while she was overheating. "it's bloody hot in here!" she shouted at them to roll down the windows. I told her she shouldn't get in their face. cops don't like that. i know she said "but i was starting to sweat".

she gave them hell at the station. chewed them out for just doing their jobs. "what good are you lot? what kind of justice is this?"

she said the cops must have been staking her out. waiting for her.
"yeah, i usually go in the morning but i waited to the afternoon this day". i thought of the cops sitting in their cars waiting for my mother. powdered sugar from their donuts falling onto their laps. bad coffee getting cold.

"did they put you in a cell?" i asked. had she become some gal's bitch?
"oh, no. they were quite nice" at the station. "let me out of the cuffs, too."
"that was nice of them." i said.

she said she could have been charged with a felony for the pipe she used because she'd picked it up on the property. perp with a pipe, i thought.
"they only charged me with a misdemeanor"
"lucky, i guess," i said.
she wanted to know how to spell misdemeanor. she wanted to look it up right then and there and see what kind of a crime it was.
"is it misc?" she asked.
"no, mis" I said. my mother: miss demeanor.
she read out loud the definition while I imagined her picking up garbage at the side of the freeway in an orange vest. it was not a pretty image -- orange's not her color.

her crime: trespassing on private property to feed a neglected and abused dog chained up in a backyard. her weapon: a plastic pipe to funnel dog food over the fence into the dog's bowl. guilty as charged.