Making it out of a riot

Yesterday the news was abuzz about a photo of a couple apparently making out in the street during the post-Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver.

Rich Lamm, Getty Images

The Canadian media tracked down the couple, and then it was suggested the guy was apparently trying to break into acting and for a while some believed it may have been a ploy for him to get exposure.

Now that the whole story has been revealed, it was merely that woman was knocked down by the police and her boyfriend bent down to assist and comfort her, and that the photographer, preoccupied with the police in his face, merely happened to capture the instant when the man gave her a little kiss.

Although it proved to be another case of much-ado-about-nothing, I did come away from the speculated-but-ultimately-false scenario with something important.

Should I ever find myself in a riot, when there's cops with clubs coming to break up the rioters and me in their path, I now have a game plan for avoiding police beatings by proving to be as unthreatening as possible: find someone, drop to the ground and start making out; no matter how hideous a kisser that person might be, suffering that for a minute seems preferable to a truncheon to the skull.

(At least until that person sues me for sexual harassment...)