I'll admit it, I've had fantasies involving men in uniform.

In them, he's usually sporting a Magnum P.I. worthy mo-tach and I get more than a stern talking to. 

But just as any teenaged girl is pained to discover that her love affair with Justin Beiber is a one-way ticket to lonely Saturday nights kissing wall posters, so was my first ever experience with a California State Trooper.

There we were, the bride and me, trash talking and spitting our way along Skyline, performing a thorough debrief of her wedding night (the evening, not the 'night,' we all know what happens there: bride and groom survive the family/friends, drink too much, and pass out in their Santana Row hotel room).

We were, however, not showing flagrant disregard for the law nor spitting in the face of authority as the tone of our imminent oppressor would have you believe.

Minutes later, as we pulled over onto the gravel to the dulcet sounds of a Silverado 4x4 "the heavier duty heavy duty - takes you off line, off-road & off the grid" blaring his State Poh-lice sirens, we were bemused. There began the kind of unwarranted attention that beautiful gals with great legs (I'm talking about the bride here) have to put up with all the time. 

Unfortunately for officer Ja Rule (his real name), we weren't intimidated by his gun, his truncheon, his BMI of 35 or waist/hip ratio of 2. I mean, he didn't even have a set of pretend CHIPS aviators! The only thing authentic about his alleged authority was his complete lack of a sense of humour, and his patronising language.

My favourite smarmy high school teacher quip was "are YOU a traffic officer, ma'am?" in response to the bride's explanation as to why she had waved a vehicle through to overtake us when the road was clear.

We had allegedly violated law #21202 (serious crime no. 1) that states that slower vehicles on the road must yield to faster vehicles behind them. Thing was, we HAD done so, singling out & courteously waving them through (serious crime no.2) but the presence of the Silverado up the arses of the two vehicles behind us had undoubtedly forced them to be cautious, if not terrified, of the bloated vision in their rear view mirrors. 

I pointed this out, that drivers often modify their behaviour in the vicinity of a police car (let alone something out of Smash'em Up Speedway) but he raised his hand and said "stop talking ma'am." Identification was taken and he returned to the Silverado to research our extensive criminal activity and speak with other moustached men wearing weapons on their day jobs. 

While he did this, I copied the rego of the monster truck, documented his appalling choice of Police Facial Hair Options and waited for the fall out.

The bride was born and raised in California, and despite graduating college, she never inhaled. Her record was clean as a whistle. Me? I was just the dumb Australian with a Victorian drivers license. I'd been clever to keep my accent thick and as authentic as Aussie actor Sam Worthington in any film he's ever been in. Avatar was just a skin colour change for him, and in The Debt, where he played a Mossad agent in Berlin, he sounded just like Sam Worthington occasionally pretending to be Israeli.

Ja Rule tried to get the registration of our bikes, despite our retorts that bikes aren't registered in Australia. Methinks it was an excuse to get close to the bride's legs, but he couldn't really bend down well enough, so that was a failed mission. He let us off with a verbal warning, warned us of the dangers of riding on this shoulder-less road at the top of hills in the middle of nowhere and roared off to fight crime in a neighbourhood near you. 

In the time it took to try and get the bride's phone number, probably 8 banks had been robbed in East LA and 43 cars had been jacked in down town Palo Alto. But hey, think globally, act locally, right? We could have been the next axis of evil and Ja Rule mighta been contemplating a promotion.

We were cool, calm and collected throughout. Totally un-Bridesmaids like, and from my end, it was more that I wanted to not let this joker ruin my opinion of the good work many cops do. And that some of them might resemble Tom Selleck.

I'm staying hopeful, a girl's gotta dream, right?

(FYI the wedding 2 nights earlier was a total blast. I have never sung at a wedding and felt like I was an American Idol finalist...)