Man, park your wife in the line of gunfire just one time, and you’ll never hear the end of it.

It was just after midnight on a spring morning a few years ago. There was a report of an armed standoff in a small town outside of Auburn. Obeying all traffic laws very carefully, I got to the scene in minutes.

It was dark out along Route 121 except for the hypnotic dance of police lights where cruisers blocked the road. I glided in as close as I could and rolled to a stop.

A gigantic state trooper approached just as my eyes were adjusting to the dark. He leaned into the car and looked us over.

“Sir, you’ll need to move your car immediately,” he said in a grizzly bear voice. “There’s a man with a gun across the street and at this moment, the young lady next to you is directly in the line of fire.”

The young lady was my wife. We’d been married two months. OK, I’m a moron. But I did move the car to get her out of range of stray bullets. I’m an Old World gentleman that way.

Rookie mistake. You never park near the scene of gunplay before getting a grip on how things are laid out. You never park so close to a fire scene that your car will become blocked in by firetrucks. You never smoke at the scene of a car wreck because there is combustible fluid everywhere and you might explode. Worse, a fireman might slap you around and lose any respect he might have had for you and your vulture-like colleagues.

I like to think I know all the tricks for avoiding this kind of shame and peril. I could teach a course in it. I would enthrall the wide-eyed students because I still make these bonehead moves all the time.

No, really.

At another police standoff just months ago, I parked my car almost on top of a spent shell casing that police had been searching for. Cops really don’t like reporters sniffing around their crime scenes under any circumstance. Drive over their evidence and they start having lurid fantasies involving Mace and the reporter writhing in pain.

Basic stuff. Simple pitfalls to be avoided.

A short time ago, there was a report of a person raising hell at a phone booth near the Sun Journal. It sounded like things were about to get ugly. I dashed out the door and toward the park where I suspected the mischief was occurring.

There was no hell being raised anywhere. Happy children laughed in the park. A young couple tossed a Frisbee back and forth. A dog ran in circles racing its tail.

I should have been off in search of the scene of the crime. Instead, I stood peering into the park, as if the drama might appear like one of those hidden picture cartoons they used to run on the comics page.

Sweaty, frustrated, I walked back down Park Street. A police cruiser rolled by with a suspect in the back seat. I was not only late getting to the action, I was a block away.

“Rookie!” a cop yelled out the window as he passed. He knows I hate that.

A newsman doesn’t go anywhere without a pen and notebook. That’s Reporting 101.

There were two stabbings in Auburn last week. I arrived at both of them without pen or paper. There is nothing like the look you’ll get from a grizzled police officer when you say things like: “Excuse me, sergeant? Could you tell me exactly what transpired here? And could I borrow a pen? A sheet from your notebook there would also be helpful.”

Maybe you can get by without the paper. Hell, use an old parking ticket, your arm, or a slow-moving pedestrian to scrawl your notes. Forget the pen, and you’ll have to hit someone up for eyeliner, lipstick or some other girlie item. It turns the paper into a gelatinous mess, but it gets the job done.

At a press conference, you don’t pose a question involving information other reporters might be unaware of. You don’t drive your car if you can get there quicker on foot. You don’t ask: “Can I quote you on that?” if the person being quoted hasn’t indicated otherwise. If a potential witness at the scene of chaos asks you for a cigarette, you give him one, even if you’re almost out. Even if you don’t smoke.

Adrenaline and hunger for the scoop will cloud a reporter’s judgment from time to time. If it doesn’t, he or she doesn’t want it bad enough.

So it happened again on Spruce Street a year or so ago. Bullets were flying in a downtown apartment. Cops and crooks were scurrying like ants beneath an overturned log. I parked near the center of the street and jumped out. My wife looked at me with doubtful eyes.

“Isn’t this, uh … isn’t this kind of in the line of fire?”

Reporting 202. Never bring the wife to the scene of the crime.