a false saying

Of all recent American folk wisdom, I find none more off the mark than the trite old adage that “there’s never a cop around when you need one.” My own experience has been precisely the opposite. On those rare occasions when I’ve been doing something marginally counter to law, no police have ever materialized even when the location made it likely that they soon would. By contrast, in every case where I have needed police assistance, law enforcement officers have appeared as instantly as genies from bottles, without my lifting a finger. But perhaps I’m just lucky.