[Xist]

According to Wikipedia, the Miranda rights only need to be read before interrogation, not arrest.

Jail guards really need to avoid asking inmates how they are doing.

"Well, I can think of worse experiences, but you do not want to hear about them, and thinking about them only makes this traumatic experience slightly worse."

Things that I did not realize:

Jail is cold. Someone arrested after me said that it minimizes germs and I read that cold inmates behave far better than ones suffering with the heat. I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but wore the same in Germany in the winter. I just could not sleep. You certainly do not get a blanket.

They never turn out the lights and you do not have any possessions, so you cannot cover your eyes.

They ask you if you have any history of depression or ever attempted suicide and then take your belt, shoelaces, and presumably anything else that you could use as an emergency tourniquet during the zombie apocalypse.

The jail guards actually treated me better than anyone else that night, although I made a point of saying "Sir," "Ma'am," "Yes, please," and "Thank you Sir" whenever appropriate.

I was the only one that spoke to the judge like that. It was mostly "Yeah, "Nuh-uh," and "okay." One girl was kicked out for refusing to stay quiet during court proceedings.

Despite being a first-time offender and painfully polite, the judge was upset when I asked him to explain the terms that he was using. I do not watch television and I find crime dramas to be depressing. Who is being killed this time? To the best of my knowledge, none of my friends have been arrested, and one told me she did not believe that I had been. My Sergeant said he never expected it to happen to me.

Despite making a point of speaking calmly and politely to a security guard and the police, I got along better with inmates who spoke freely about why they were arrested and what they had previously done--at least with us.

You would be surprised why security guards call the police and I have heard they need to answer every call.

I really want to hear the 911 tape. I am still trying to figure out parts of what happened. Mostly why.

You do not have any belongings in jail and you definitely do not have soap. I was well-hydrated when I went in and it was cold, so I used the steel toilet many times. You need to ask for toilet paper. I cried heavily, but my nose just ran the whole time because of the cold. I wiped my nose on my knees while handcuffed. The faucet is more of a water fountain, so I doubt it is clean, and you have hard little buttons instead of handles. Honestly, you are probably better off not washing your hands.

They gave me a surprisingly good sandwich for breakfast, plain, but decent. However, the guard opened the bag and had me grab it with my jail hands.

My cell was seven cinder blocks long, twelve tall, and as wide as it was tall. The top bunk was steel and the bottom was concrete. My foam pad was actually much thicker than the one that I use for sleeping in the Army and flat concrete was better than rocky ground I always had in the field.

There were two vents in the ceiling, each a grid of 2" squares, four squares wide, four tall, with two inches between holes--more or less, I certainly did not have a ruler!

One girl wailed for a very long time. At first, she sounded like a dog howling. Some inmates managed to sleep, but some of them must have practice.

One guard told me the time when I asked. Another inmate asked another guard and she just said "Morning." When he asked when we would see the judge, she also said "Morning."

The guard who escorted us to the exit said "Congratulations, you are going home." I pointed out that I used to have a clean record. He said "I spent six years as a Marine Officer. You knew what you were doing. You knew better."

That seemed like a poor time to tell him to do push-ups.

The City of Tempe is a high-volume customer of the towing company, which gives law-breakers a discount. I paid $62.20 to get my car back forty extremely-long hours after it was towed. It seemed sad that I was actually happy about that--after walking three miles during the afternoon.