Steve taught me how to cheat a piss test by filling a latex glove with warm salt water and adding just a pinch of instant coffee "for Color." The result is essentially a bladder that you then conceal inside your pants. "The tricky part," he said, "is popping a hole in the glove—I like to use a thumbtack—and filling the cup without getting caught."

The clerk who runs the library’s circulation desk offered another less involved method: simply rub a bit of liquid soap along your finger and let the piss run off it. He couldn’t explain the chemistry except to confirm that it has indeed worked for him on several pressing occasions. (The same clerk told me that a sympathetic officer once pissed for him after he admitted he couldn’t pass the test himself.)On Friday I was summoned to the lieutenant’s office for a random drug test. Fortunately, never having used drugs, there was no need for deception. After signing and initialing some paperwork, I was marshaled into a bathroom where I was directed to wash my hands, without soap, before surrendering my sample. The result, which appears on the cup’s indicator in under ten minutes, returned negative.