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“Sit tight. You should be out in—”

“Four or five hours?” I said with a wan smile.

The cop nodded as he slammed the door. There were no bars here, only a window made of three-inch-thick Plexiglas. But my new cell was the fucking Waldorf-Astoria compared to the last one: the toilet had a seat, there was a small sink in the corner, and most important there was a phone on the wall.

Thinking back to every police show I’d ever seen that didn’t feature Stewart Copeland, the officers always spoke about a prisoner’s right to one phone call. I hadn’t been offered one phone call, and come to think of it, I hadn’t been read the Miranda rights when I was first arrested either. Andy Sipowicz was full of shit! But I wasn’t ready to call home just yet.

I decided to get my thoughts together and kill time by looking out the window of my cell. I saw inmates shackled together marching down the hallway in their orange jumpsuits. I saw an old black prisoner with white hair and a white beard swabbing the floor.

Would that be me someday? Perhaps that guy had started out with a DUI too and just never got out? Then I saw another prisoner across the hallway staring out of his window aimlessly as well. Ah, a fellow convict passing the time observing the world around him just like me, all the while singing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen …”

The jailbird broke into a snaggle-toothed grin and mouthed, “I’m going to fucking kill you …”

I darted away from the window and concentrated on eating my bologna sandwich on white and gulping down my fruit drink containing 0% REAL JUICE. If you’ve ever eaten a piece of cork and washed it down with cardboard-flavored Gatorade, you’ll have an idea of what my breakfast tasted like.

It was time to face Hurricane Jessica. I picked up the phone and took a deep breath.

I dialed my home number and when she picked up an operator said, “You have received a collect call from the L.A. County Jail from Chris …”

“You’ve got to be kidding me …,” I heard her say.

To get into the details of the verbal thrashing my wife gave me that morning is moot. Suffice it to say she made her displeasure regarding my current situation exceedingly clear. Then she said she’d call my manager, Barry Bloom, to see if he could get me out of there. My fate was in her capable hands, and I felt a little better (for now) that she was on the case. I knew she would bake me a cake with a file in it to get me out if she had to.

After another hour, the loudspeaker eventually boomed, “Will prisoner Chris Irvine please identify himself.”

My spirits soared! I was getting out! I banged on the glass for what seemed like twenty minutes until an annoyed-looking guard (with mustache of course) opened the door.

“Officer, I’m Chris Irvine! The loudspeaker told me to identify myself!”

“Well, good for you. Do you want a fucking medal?” he queried, and slammed the door shut.

I was crestfallen and collapsed on the floor trying not to cry. I eventually picked myself back up and glanced through the window across the hallway.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Snaggletooth mouthed again.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you first,” I mouthed back, and I meant it.

Snaggletooth’s grin vanished and he disappeared into the bowels of his cell.

The clock struck noon and I was taken to another holding cell. But there was one last glitch before I was released, when I was told the smudged fingerprints the cop took from me on the street didn’t match the ones I’d taken at the station. The front desk officer was confused and wouldn’t discharge me without confirmation.

He surveyed the assorted group of convicts, who were just as anxious to get the hell out of jail as I was. “Are any of you guys wrestling fans?”

They looked at each other nervously, afraid to answer one way or another, in case it was a trick question designed to put them back in the hoosegow.

All the crooks sat silent until one redheaded Richie Cunningham– looking cat squeaked, “I am. He’s Chris Jericho, right?”

Indeed I was, and I was ready to get out of the big house. After the positive