There's the old and very bad joke that cropped up after 911:  Did you hear the one about the knitter that got arrested?  She was knitting an afgahn. 

Well, that was literally almost me. 

I have not had the best year.  I have been laid off twice since July.  I am now unemployed but have been using the time to rediscover my passions – horseback riding and knitting (not at the same time). 

Awhile back I was pulled over for having and expired tag and inspection.  I had a court date set for today which should have been straight-forward.  Just show up with proof of current registration and passed inspection and the case would be dismissed. 

Unfortunately, yesterday I fell off my horse… hard… and have a hairline fracture on my wrist and quite a bit of back pain.  Getting dressed was a challenge – have you ever tried to put on a bra with a wrist that won’t bend?  I grabbed my knitting bag and my purse and go down to the courthouse. 

I had to park about 2 blocks away and walk and it was a bit painful.  I put my knitting bag and my purse on the conveyer belt to get x-rayed and walk through the metal detector. 

The guy asks if I have a large pen collection and I asked if he wanted to look in the bag – it was probably my knitting needles.  I was very polite and offered helpfully, "would you like to look inside".  I was knitting a shawl on large (size 17) metal knitting needles.  I also had forgotten about the scissors and several U-shaped cable hooks I had in my knitting bag.  In the process of showing my knitting to his supervisor, he broke the knitting needle.  I was told I would have to take my knitting bag back to my car (a two-block walk each way --- did I mention I was in pain??).  I said since he had already broken the needle, I would let them have that.  I pulled the knitting off the needle – irritated but still in control.  (The FAA allows knitting needles on airplanes -- why not the courthouse?)

Then they ran the bag through again and noticed the scissors and several cable hooks – those were also deemed too dangerous.  I tried to explain that I had fallen off a horse yesterday and didn’t want to have to walk back to my car because I was in pain and couldn’t I just leave the needles with them and grab them on my way out.  Absolutely not…  I would not be able to get them back again.  At this point, I started to cry and said “I fell off a fucking horse yesterday… I’m in pain… I don’t want to have to walk all the way back to my car again.” 

Well, dropping the f-bomb was apparently like throwing a hand grenade in their mind.  They started yelling at me (2 different large cops ) that if I didn’t “calm down” and stop using profanity, I would have bigger problems on my hands… and they threatened to arrest me.  At this point, I really started to lose it and said I was just there because of expired tags and I just wanted to present my registration and go home.  I was sobbing.  The kept insisting that I needed to “calm” down and that they weren’t going to let me make my court appearance.

At this point, I’m thinking that now I’m really going to get in trouble for missing my court date and what was I supposed to do.  So I gave them my knitting bag and told them to take it … I just wanted to take care of my ticket and leave.  They kicked the bag back at me and told me that I was not entitled to come in there and utter profanity and cry and “throw a hissy fit”.  I said I had not sworn since he told me to stop.  I’m still sobbing – I can’t stop crying.  I’m telling them I don’t expect to take my knitting in.  However, I just wanted to take care of my ticket.  They kept threatening to arrest me if I didn’t stop crying.

At this point, one of the cops – who was older and ex-military – comes and stands 2 inches from my face and literally yells, “YOU DO NOT GET TO ACT LIKE THIS!”  I yelled back, “I AM ALLOWED TO CRY!”.  With that, he says “That’s it!! You’re under arrest!”

He takes my left arm and slaps a handcuff on it.  They take the bags off my right shoulder and try to put a cuff on my right wrist behind my back – but because of my broken wrist and the splint I was wearing, the handcuff was too small.  So he asks the other guy for a larger set of cuffs.  I’m really crying now and panicking. 

I kept saying, I’m a 46-year old woman… I’m not a terrorist.  What did they think I was going to do?  I’m not sure what happened next because I just couldn’t look at any of them – I was too busy sobbing.  The other cop comes and starts talking to me in a very low voice saying “you need to listen to me”.  I ask if I can sit down because my legs were shaking.  He wouldn’t let me and just said “you need to listen to me”. 

“This is all YOUR fault.  YOU are embarrassing yourself”.  I agreed that I was embarrassing myself but I was simply trying to talk to them and I had NOT used profanity since the initial f-bomb.  I asked, “what do you want me to do?  Admit that you are right and I am wrong?  That it is all my fault?  Fine!  It is all my fault and you are perfect”.  I’m still sobbing and said “I’m going to go sit down. “  This time he didn’t stop me. 

I sat there for a couple of minutes, just sobbing.  They continued to lecture me about my behavior.  I said I would give them anything they wanted – I just wanted to take care of my ticket and go home.  I calmly handed over my scissors – mindful to hand them over in the correct way with the blades pointed away from the officer.  He was going to let me go at that point but I said “wait, you forgot my cable needles” which I also handed over.  He was going to let me go and I said “wait, I have more… you don’t want me taking these in there – I could hurt someone with these, too”.  I offered him my yarn, my knitting needle gauge and everything else in my bag.

With that, I asked where I needed to go and he gave me directions.  He made some comment about this time of day I should be in and out in no time.  I gave him a sarcastic “thank you for all of his help” and went to take care of my citation…. I was crying the whole time – more quietly but the tears continued to flow.  Everyone pretended not to notice. 

He was right – after that, it was less than five minutes before I was headed out the door again – minus about 50 dollars in knitting tools and any shred of dignity I had left.  I thought about flipping them off as I walked out but didn’t want to land in jail – so much for free speech.

I was quietly seething inside at the fact that they were allowed to yell at me and brow beat me but I was not allowed to defend myself and I was expected to take their abuse… that it was somehow considered a crime to be crying – something I truly could not control at that point.  That I had no weapons (they were holding my purse and my knitting bag throughout most of this) and that I was clearly a middle-aged woman who was out of shape and clearly injured yet unless I said exactly what they wanted the way they wanted, they would and actually tried to arrest me. 

I’m not generally someone who challenges authority like that.  When a policeman pulls me over, I am always sure to be especially nice and to set a good example for my children.  I never show sarcasm.  However, there was something about the way I was made to feel – the fact that I was not even allowed to cry and even when I attempted to surrender my knitting tools of doom, because I wasn’t doing it “respectfully” enough or with the appropriate tone of obsequiousness truly infuriated me.  Not only were they going to demonstrate who had all the power, they were going to make sure I also had absolutely no will, dignity or self-respect left either.   The fact that by crying, I was somehow doing something wrong was infuriating.  I’m not proud of crying.  However, it isn’t something I’m able to control.  When faced with extreme stress, I cry. 

After I left, I was very aware of my driving – I kept seeing police cars and wanted to make darn sure I didn’t do anything that could possibly get me pulled over – I was still crying.  Ironically enough, I pulled up behind an unmarked police car and was stopped at a light… I happened to look at their tag on their license plate.  It was expired.  Oooo, what I wouldn’t have given to be able to pull them over and give them a citation – which is what landed me where I was in the first place.  However, THEY wouldn’t have been dumb enough to try to take their knitting with them to the courthouse.

Next time… assuming there is a next time, I’ll just take my kindle.  Fucking assholes!