So that’s what riding in the back of a police car feels like.

Not experienced it yourself? Be grateful.

There’s not much leg room and you can’t open the door. You can’t roll down the window either.

You do have a personal chauffeur that you talk to through a sliding window made from bullet-proof glass between the front and back seats. But there’s no champagne, no surround sound stereo system, no plush carpet. The black seats may have been leather but I wasn’t paying too much attention when I got my lift just after midnight on Monday morning.

So much for an uneventful re-entry into real life after a splendid week on the beach in Hilton Head.

“My” police car wasn’t one of the new fancy models our correspondent Jodi Rall wrote about in Monday’s BHP. In fact, I had just edited that story before I ended up in the older model. I knew immediately it wasn’t the 2011 model because the BRENTWOOD POLICE lettering wasn’t outlined in black. I’m an observant editor, you see.

So, what did I do to earn my one-way ticket into the backseat of BPD Officer Surre’s patrol car? Nothing as it turns out.

I tried and tried to start my car outside the Brentwood Home Page office after I finally turned out the office lights about 11:45p.m. Sunday. Nothing.

It wasn’t the battery, I knew. My best guess was the starter. And it wouldn’t start.

So I did what any intelligent, independent woman in my shoes would do. I called my husband to come get me.

Call it vacation fatigue but the man never heard the phone ring despite, oh, let’s just say 10 attempts via both land line and cell.

I thought about walking. I had started a new fitness regime at the beach and had on good walking shoes. But even though I’m a big girl and wasn’t that scared, walking through any town – even Brentwood – alone at midnight wasn’t appealing.

I would have called the Brentwood Fire Department but since I flunked out of the Citizens Fire Academy, I wasn’t sure they would accept the call. So I remembered that little life lesson everyone learns as a child: If you’re in trouble, find a police officer. So I did.

Not being a true life-threatening emergency, I didn’t call 9-1-1. But I had the BPD’s non-emergency number – 371-0160 – in my cell phone.

“Uhm, do you give people a ride home?” I asked the dispatch officer after explaining my plight.

A few minutes later, after I finally remembered the building’s address (“On the Town Center Roundabout” didn’t compute on the GPS system, I guess), Officer Surre arrived to whisk me home.

He was great. And I appreciated the help more than anyone will ever know – especially my husband who was oblivious to it all until I told him about it the next morning.

We’re getting a phone for our bedroom this week.

I wouldn’t be honest if I said I had never done anything that might have earned my way into the back of a police car. But I honestly can say that as much as I appreciated the help and ride home, it was an eerie feeling – one I hope I don’t have to experience ever again.

Susan Leathers is editor of Brentwood Home Page. Click here to read previous columns. Email her at susan@brentwoodhomepage.com