The bartender cuts Paulie off a few minutes before closing time. Paulie objects but Eugene, the owner of the pub, steps in, insisting that Paulie get somebody to drive him home.

Paulie, of course, will hear none of that. He crawls into his car, then zooms out into the street. He’s less than two miles from home when the police pull him over.

The first cop examines Paulie’s driver’s license while the second cop tries to administer the field sobriety test. Paulie’s speech is slurred and he’s totally unable to follow, much less pass, the drunk test.

It’s at this moment that the police dispatcher announces an armed robbery. Both cops listen keenly at the address given — it’s less than a block away from where they’re now standing.

With adrenaline flowing, one cop tells Paulie, "Stay where you are, we’re not through with you — we’ll be back in a minute." Then the two cops vault the fence next to the sidewalk and run down the alleyway toward the robbery.

Even drunk, Paulie tries to be a good citizen, so he waits, and he waits. But after a while his patience runs out, and he gets into the car and drives home. That’s at about 1:30 a.m.

Paulie parks in the garage and tells his wife he’s sick and doesn’t want to talk to anyone. "If anybody asks, I’ve been sick in bed all day," Paulie snarls.

Two hours later there’s a pounding on the door. Two cops are looking for Paulie. "He’s sick in bed," says the wife.

"Oh, really," replies one cop, "would ya look at this," he says, holding up Paulie’s driver’s license. "Where’s his car?" the cops demands.

"Out in the garage," says the wife, pointing the way.

The cops open the garage, and there sits a police patrol car with the lights still flashing!

Now I wasn’t able to verify this as an absolutely true story, but the guy that gave it to me is a good friend and retired cop himself. Surely he wouldn’t lie to me about a thing like this?