The past few days I’ve only wanted to spend my time with the women in the Litchfield Women’s Correctional Facility in New York. You know, the new season of “Orange Is The New Black” premiered on Netflix after a long wait. We got together with a group of our best friends to listen to a little Regina Spektor and catch up with Chapman and company this weekend. We admonished one couple for being the traitorous assholes who watched ahead an episode. If you’re not watching this show, start from the beginning and watch. It’s fantastic and lives up to it’s critical accolades.

We joked around and said which character each of our friends are. You would think that I would be Alex Vause. Tall, dark hair, big boobs and dark rimmed glasses. Obvious, right? No. My friend Sam said it best. She looked at me and said, “Amy, you’re Piper Chapman. You think you’re too pretty to go to prison.” I said, “Oh, I know I’m too pretty to go to prison!”

Let’s be clear. I would never get into a salacious love affair with an international drug trafficker like Chapman did. I would listen to my attorney’s advice and never lie under oath, that’s for sure. However, like Chapman, I would ask my husband to keep my blog updated while I’m locked up and I would read up on prison life before turning myself over.

mrgolightly.tumblr.com

piperchapman.tumblr.com

Seriously. I don’t think I’d make it in prison. Since watching the HBO series “OZ” during the height of its popularity I am convinced we are all one bad decision away from being locked up. I think any teens needing to be scared straight should be forced to watch “OZ.” As a teen I tried to steal one time just to see what it was like. I took a pack of gum from a hotel gift shop while on an overnight trip with my church youth choir. I got 100 feet into the lobby and felt so guilty I turned around and told the clerk I accidentally walked out, forgetting it was in my hand. I paid the $1.50 and vowed never to try to steal anything again. The only rush I ever got from shoplifting was rushing back to pay for something out of guilt. Clearly I never needed to be scared straight.

It’s no surprise that the story lines in “Orange Is The New Black” that have stuck with me at this time in my life are the ones about the mothers. Seeing the pregnant woman come back to prison with empty arms after delivering her baby was awful. I look at my babies’ faces and think what it would be like if I didn’t see them everyday because I was behind bars. I realized millions of families around our nation deal with that daily.

You could say that I drive safer, and continue to live right so I don’t become even more like Chapman. Now I have to run and go pick up my child from school on time. I can’t even handle being admonished by the preschool teachers, imagine how I would handle prison guards.