I get a lot of comments from people with the increasingly common name of Anonymous. When did that name get more popular than Bob or Jennifer? Weird. Either way, my new friend Anonymous recently left me this comment:

I suggest you try to re-write this article posted on MSNBC titled "10 tips: What to do when a cop pulls you over."

After perusing the article, I can understand why Anonymous wanted it rewritten--it's as boring as a night in bed with Dyckerson. And clearly, it was written by some goody two-shoes merely speculating on how to get out of a ticket, rather than someone who has real-world experience in the matter. Allow me to impart to you some of my vast wisdom on this subject.

What to do if pulled over by a cop

We've all been there--some of us more often than others. It's always nerve-wracking to see those flashing lights behind your car, but trust me, it gets easier with time. The first time it happens to you, you're likely to sit there rigidly gripping the steering wheel in frozen panic like an amateur, sweating and stammering while the cop speaks to you like a stern father speaks to a misbehaving 5-year-old. But by the 90th or 185th time, you'll be smiling with confidence as you stealthily cram your bag of crack cocaine into the hidden compartment you've carved into your steering column. Confidence comes with time, but here are a few tips to keep in mind until you've gotten a few hundred practice arrests under your belt.

1. Don’t try anything funny. As the police officer is approaching your car, he's got a keen eye trained on the rear window of your car. He's looking for signs that you're furtively stashing beer cans, reaching for a gun, or doing something else illegal or dangerous. Don't raise his suspicions by leaning across the seat to rummage through the glove compartment for your insurance card--he may interpret that the wrong way. Sit calmly as he approaches, and avoid doing anything more dramatic than removing every single scrap of clothing you're wearing so that you're completely nude when he gets to your window. Absent-mindedly massage your breasts as you talk to him.

(If you're thinking I'm making the mistake of tailoring this article specifically to women and forgetting that men will also be reading it and trying to figure out how it can apply to them, then you haven't met my male readers. 98% of them get mistaken for women on a regular basis, and the other 2% are pre-op. Trust me, I know what I'm doing here.)

2. Keep the chatter to a minimum. Nervousness often causes people to blab too much, which is bad for three reasons: 1) The cop will see that you're nervous, and wonder if you have something to hide, 2) He'll find the inane blather irritating and distracting, and 3) You might reveal something that can be used against you. It's always best to say as little as possible. When he leans in to look suspiciously around the interior of your vehicle with his flashlight, and asks, "Is there anything in here I should know about?" do NOT respond with, "They told me it was legal to take immigrants across the border," or worse, "I swear to God, those immigrants were alive when we left Nogales."

3. Try asking to be let off with a warning. It never hurts to ask, and it just might work, since giving you a warning is easier for the policeman than writing out your ticket and filing the paperwork that goes along with it. But the key is to be polite and respectful. Say something like, "Officer, since this is my first offense, and I've never been arrested for murder or even questioned in a murder case, would it be possible to get a warning this one time? I'll leave here and dispose of the body immediately instead of continuing to drive around with it draped across my lap like this."

4. Be prepared to react appropriately. The smaller offenses are, of course, the easier ones to weasel out of. The moment you see the lights flashing behind you, you know exactly how major your infraction is, and can immediately asess how difficult or easy it might be to get out of a ticket. Speeding? There's a fair chance you can talk your way out of that one if you play it right. Drugs? If you can stash them quickly and remain nonchalant and calm when talking to the cop, you might not get caught. But if you have a cooler of freshly-harvested human kidneys in the seat next to you, you've got a situation on your hands. At a time like that, your best option may be to fake your own death. Then hopefully you can jump up and sneak out of the morgue later when no one's looking.

5. Come up with a plausible excuse for your infraction. When a cop asks, "Why were you driving so fast?" he's not trying to prolong your humiliation, he's honestly curious about your motivation. It's an amateur's mistake to get surly and refuse to answer, or to insult the officer's intelligence by denying that you were speeding. Respond as genuinely as possible, looking him directly in the eye, and say, "I'm so sorry, Officer, I know I was speeding. I get very anxious and tense when I go more than a day or so without performing oral sex on a man in uniform. It's been 3 days now, and I don't know how much more of this I can take." You'll find that most police officers are more sympathetic than you'd think.

So there you have it: Real-life advice from a person who knows. These tactics have worked for me time and time again, although, admittedly, they're not fail-proof. Sometimes you have to sleep with a judge or two, or have a threesome with a couple of jurors. But I'll save that for a future article. In the meantime, I think you'll do just fine if you can skillfully apply my advice to unwanted interactions with officers of the law.

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