That danged dog had better not drool on my Nabs.

Even as I stood on the side of Interstate 85 in Spartanburg, S.C., on Thursday night, surrounded by three cops and a dog, that was my first thought. I had been pulled over – nabbed, so to speak – while driving through the Palmetto State on my way to Atlanta in a rental car.

I knew I wasn’t speeding, so I wondered what creative reason the cop – oops, make that cops; two more drove up before he reached me – would give for stopping me.

Where are you going?

I didn’t have long to wait. The one who stopped me claimed I’d swerved. He asked me to step out of the car.

Him: Where are you going?

Me: Atlanta.

Him: Why?

Me: I like Atlanta.

Him: What do you do for a living?

Me: I work.

Him: Do you mind if we search your car?

Me: Not without a search warrant, you can’t.

Him: Can I search you?

Me: Not without a search warrant, you can’t.

The deputy then asked if his dog could sniff around the outside of my car.

“Sure.” On the second go-round, the initially calm dog started wagging his tail and barking and then – Whoosh! – leaped like a jackrabbit through the open car window.

Oh Lord. That’s when I began worrying about the dog drooling on the crackers spread out on the front seat for easy access, as well as silently praying that whoever had rented the car prior to me had not left any narcotics in the ashtray or anywhere else.

A thorough search

The deputy explained that since the dog had gotten a “hit,” that gave them probable cause to search the car. Which they did. Thoroughly. While they were at it, they searched me, too, in ways that usually require the exchange of money or at least dinner.

Man, they searched compartments on the car that I didn’t even know existed. They pulled my clothes and toothbrush from the bag and went through them, too.

When the lady at the rental car agency had tried earlier that day to give me a red car, I rejected it precisely because I knew it would attract cops’ attention on the highway.

So did, it turned out, a brown car.

Turns out, also, that I got caught up in a law enforcement thunderstorm or, as Spartanburg County Chief Deputy William Parris told me when I called his office Monday, “That was Operation Rolling Thunder, a drug interdiction operation,” conducted by several law enforcement departments.

Don’t motorists have the right to refuse being searched? I asked Parris. “Well,” he said, “if I ask you if you want to be searched, then you can say ‘no.’ Now, if a canine indicates on your car or I see something in plain view, then I can search you without your consent. Then it can be considered that there’s reasonable belief that there’s something in the car.”

As a veteran of a hundred such stop-and-searches – give or take one or two – I know the routine, which is why I’m disappointed in what I did while they searched the Ford Edge (a decidedly undrug-dealerly car): I shoved my hands into my pockets. The deputy took exception to that move, even though he’d already searched me, and told me to take them out.

I apologized to him and chastised myself, because I know in some situations that could’ve been a fatal mistake.

After receiving a citation for failure to maintain my lane and being freed to go, I know I should’ve counted my blessings – I was still alive and not headed to the pokey. I should have hightailed it out of South Carolina as quickly as legally possible.

I could not, however, resist asking the deputy, who seemed like a pleasant enough sort, “Look. I know you’re just doing your job, but what was it about me that made you decide to search my car? Do I even look like what you think a drug dealer looks like?”

“Some of your answers,” he responded, “sent up a red flag.”

Oh yeah: what?

“When I asked you ‘What do you do for a living?’ you said ‘I work.’ That’s suspicious and evasive,” he replied.

Does anyone ever actually say, I wondered to myself, “I sling crack”?

The reasons I was evasive are: A. It was none of his darned business what I do, and B. Not everyone loves newspaper columnists the way you all do here in the Triangle. So I figured I’d keep it to myself.

You know that UNC study last week that showed black or Hispanic motorists are 77 times more likely to be searched after a traffic stop than white motorists? I hope they didn’t spend a whole bunch of money on that: Any dude I know who’s ever climbed behind the wheel could’ve told them that without analyzing 13.2 million traffic stops over 10 years.

Pssst. I can’t prove this, but I know exactly why I was searched: That danged dog just wanted my peanut butter Nabs.

Saunders: 919-836-2811 or bsaunders@newsobserver.com