Giving false information to the police
One fine day I was out on errands with a friend in his car. He got pulled over due to something minor and routine, a tail light or something, and in the process the cop asked us all our names so he could run our IDs.

Without consciously realizing it, I told the cop my screen-name instead of my legal name. "Rob T Firefly, officer."

I've been using this handle and variations thereof since the 1990s. It's my real-life nickname among many of my friends, I frequent real-life hacker events where people mostly know me by my handle, and it's my air name on a weekly talk radio show, so I'm pretty used to thinking of myself as what I call myself online. Even close family members have been known to call me Firefly now and then. I hadn't realized what I'd done until the cop suddenly looked much angrier with me, put one hand on his sidearm, and firmly suggested that I might like to step out of the car at that point with my hands where he could see them.

After searching me and running my proper name and ID through the system while I explained and apologized, he graciously decided not to run me in for giving false information to an officer of the law. I think it helped my case that I actually had my screenname listed on my business cards at the time. He sure gave me seven different kinds of hell about it before moving on, though.
( Rob T Firefly talked, like, William Shatner, on, Fri 13 Aug 2010, 22:54, Reply)