[bustedchucks]

im one of the 4+ degenerates
nothing major, im a pretty harmless guy, just bad luck with the man.
back during giuliani's(sp?) good health law bs i got picked up for hopping a turnstyle in the subway. i was sloppy drunk, coming from a party and mistook a coin for a token. i kept putting it in and it kept (well, like 2 or 3 times)rejecting it so i was like [censored] this and hopped over and start walking to the platform, and they grabbed me up.
they complimented me, said i jumped over it like a gazzelle, said i had the best form they'd seen all night. i was like whatever, gimme my ticket and the cops say no ticket, youre getting arrested. turns out they were doing a sting and picked up 6 of us in a half hour. they made us stand on the platform in handcuffs as an example for the other passengers what happens when you dont pay.
people were pointing and laughing at us.
pretty embarrassing.
i was asking the one cop who was reasonable if he didnt think this was a waste of his time, what with there being actual criminals out for him to catch. he said it was but this is what they told him to do tonight so there he was. said the theory on it is people who commint big crimes commit small crimes too and often when they did these stings they'd get guys with warrents out.
of the six of us they arrested zero of us had warrants.
there was this guy and his girlfriend who had put in the token and went through together, they were tryna argue that they should only get in half as much trouble..no dice.
so anyway they pile us into a paddy (patty?) wagon brings downtown- actually crosstown- throuw us in a holding cell and keep us there for hours while they're proccessing and release me with a court date.

heres the kicker, i go to court and when they call my name to go before the judge i go up and they have this little plastic chain link fence thing and i was having trouble with the latch and didnt want to stand there fumbling with it looking like a tool, so i just stepped over it. it was only like knee high, cake. when i get over it the judge gives me this look like, are you [censored] kidding me?!? he yells at me "isnt that what your here for?"

he made me open it, go out, close it, open it, come back, and close it.
they all laughed at me.
pretty embarassing.

epilogue: 8 hrs. sweeping up the subway.