You have the right to remain in the car like a scared little girl

It's L.A. Money talks. And tonight it said I get to ride along with the L.A.P.D. on the night shift in South Los Angeles.

My kid's school has an annual fundraising auction. Every year, we spend a perfectly good Saturday night looking at baskets of shampoo and body washes, pictures of cabins in Mammoth, inflatable backyard movie screens and other items we can silently bid on. Usually there's not much I'm interested in.

Although don't get me wrong - I do love a nice body wash.

But this year, I saw this little item and for several reasons I knew I had to have it.

One is I grew up on the mean streets of West Los Angeles (north of Wilshire). The city is my beat (see what I did there?). Also, I love watching COPS. Every episode there's a drunk guy in a beer-stained, white tank top tripping over his tongue trying to explain to the incredibly patient officer why he's not the guy they're after.

Comedy at its finest.

I've always had tremendous respect and admiration for the job the police do. Sure, we all hear about the bad ones. But every day, in cities all over the country they're putting their lives on the line to protect us.

Over the years I've had a few occasions to call the police in our city in the middle of the night when we thought someone was on our property. They were here in less than 30 seconds. When it turned out to be nothing, I apologized for wasting their time, saying they probably had real crimes to solve. They insisted they'd rather I call and have it turn out to be nothing than not call and actually have some criminal to deal with.

While I'm sitting at my desk trying to think of some clever little tagline for a car or fast food company, they're on the streets wondering if the jacked up guy they're stopping for speeding is going to pull out a gun and make it their last day on the job. And on earth.

I think if I ever told a cop about how rough I thought my day was they'd double over laughing.

Besides being a fan of the police, I'm also a fan of high speed chases. If I catch one on the news, or if one of my friends calls me and tells me there's one on, I drop everything and sit glued to the television until it's over. Every time I ask the same question: how does this guy think it's going to end? Does he think the cops and helicopters will just get tired and let him go? My favorite part, besides when they stop and come out with their hands up, is when the cop car does that maneuver where they tap the bumper and the suspect's car goes spinning out of control. Very entertaining.

I'm sure my ride-along will be extremely interesting. And I'm sure since it's in one of the tougher parts of L.A. I'll see a few things I wouldn't normally get exposed to.

Right now I'm hoping we're in hot pursuit in a high speed chase.

But my guess is when I'm sitting in the police car, I'll be hoping for an uneventful night where we both return safely and I have a great story to tell my kids.