Putting One's Best Foot Backward

I went out for a pack of cigs dressed like I was at least 6'6" and 300lbs., and you should do this in this small urban area because something like the following *will* happen. As I parked the car across the street from the liquor store open on New Year's Day, the vehicle coming toward me on the side street was a police car. If you've never been to New Brunswick, I should tell you this important thing - don't try talking to the cops. They're more insecure than a bloated beauty queen clutching an empty box of Godivas. I have honestly had this conversation with an officer demanding I put my clothes back on one November.

Him: Are you over 18?

Wait, wait, while that made me laugh like Lucy and Ethel stuffing chocolates in their pockets, that wasn't the really funny part. Nope.

Me: Officer, you've caught me modeling naked for this photographer in this completely secluded location.
Him: We're the *New Brunswick* Police. We don't catch anybody doing *anything.* Some guy from the prosecutor's office sat in his car behind those bushes until he got bored and called it in.

In a city filled with rampaging art students, you'd think the police would be used to *that.* Anyway, so I'm standing on Senior Street today, waiting to cross to the liquor store, and the police car is driving very slowly - so slowly - toward me. My days of stopping traffic with pulchritude and a toothy smile are way, way over, so I don't think the nice policeman is entranced, and his speed not increasing. What do I do? I hula. I can hear the ukeleles in my head. Palm trees, ocean breezes, grass skirts; it's Hawaii in my brain, and I'm making a very hula hand gesture that anywhere else might mean, "After you, I insist." But I'm in New Brunswick, and he just about stops the car to stare at me. I look like a little old lady who quit painting her outhouse to go buy something flammable. And I can just hear him thinking, "Does this cruiser make me look fat?"