I must confess that I also was manhandled by those mean ol' coppers myself once — after willfully defying them, not surprisingly. An impromptu parade had started just as I was heading for home on the last day — protesting police brutality, ironically — and the police where doing their swarm-and-block routine along the parade's route as a form of crowd control.

A bicycle cop urged me to take the long way around to get to get to my car, but being both curious AND impatient I walked headlong into the parade's direction and suddenly saw that I had no place to go, since the parade was a rather large and boisterous one, and the police who were following it on either side wouldn't let anyone stand on the other side of them. I pressed myself up against a wall but a cop grabbed me as he passed by and THREW me in with the cop-hating protesters! No big deal, though. I survived, with no rubber bullet wounds to flaunt. Plus I deserved it.

One thing that DID piss me off, however, is that when I got to my car I found a $40 dollar parking ticket on it — and I was parked LEGALLY, too! MAN, did that frost me. SMASH THE STATE!