We at Various Things & Stuff like to play the odds.

Not on gambling, of course. We’ve been in Las Vegas too long to believe that we’re the ones who are going to beat the house. We know better.

But when we slip behind the wheel, especially on trips home to our beloved California, we take certain risks. And they almost always pay off.

But on Sunday, our luck ran out.

You see, we love to speed. The journey down Interstate 15 to the sun-kissed coast is long and somewhat boring. And as expert California-to-Vegas travelers, we know just when and how to speed to avoid the unwanted attention of our old adversary, the California Highway Patrol.

Sundays are usually good days, since there are fewer officers working. But this Sunday was an exception. We were returning with some friends from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA, driving in a buddy’s Ford minivan.

The first CHP radio car we spotted was parked on the side of the road on the way into Barstow, Calif. We slowed down from about 90 to around 85, and gently passed him. (At this point, we were doing roughly the speed of traffic.) He stayed at roadside, and we gently increased our speed so as to put some blacktop between us and the law.

But it didn’t work this time. After leaving Barstow, we couldn’t help but notice the red and blue LEDs and flashing headlights of the black-and-white Crown Victoria, the preferred weapon of our enemy.

We were nailed, traveling at 87 mph in a 70 mph zone. But the nice trooper only wrote the ticket for 85 mph.

Thanks a lot, we thought as we signed the ticket, which was issued at 6:04 p.m.

We resumed our journey, and we were, for just a few minutes, cognizant of our speed. We tried — for a brief time — actually going 70 mph. It was terrible. Every car on the road passed us. We clogged the No. 2 lane. And, for us, keeping even a lumbering minivan at 70 mph was just too much.

So we began to speed again.

That’s more like it, we thought, resuming speed to a healthy 90 mph or so. Now we were passing other cars, Baker was less than one hour away and Vegas another hour after that. No worries.

Until we noticed a suspicious vehicle in the rear-view mirror which bore the unmistakable profile of a Crown Vic.

No way, we thought. There’s no chance that this could happen twice in the same day!

We changed lanes, hoping the officer would simply pass us and look for faster fish to ticket. Like that dick in the sports car that was dodging and weaving his way up the Cajon Pass a while back.

No luck, because no sooner did we change lanes than we saw those all-too-familiar lights start to flash. Damn it!

We prayed that it was another officer, and not the same one who’d cited us just 26 minutes before. And it was. This officer was a little friendlier, and wrote us up for going 89 mph. (We were really going 91.)

Yes, you read that right: Not only did we not learn from our first ticket, we actually got worse just minutes later!

But it’s not like we were as bad as the stripper that our second cop of the day told us about. Working in Las Vegas and living in California, she drove her Mercedes SL 500 at 105 mph past a trooper, and got “lippy” when she took her ticket. Our officer caught her doing 103 mph not long afterwards, and wrote her again. By the time the third cop caught her above the century mark, her car was impounded and she was headed to jail for reckless driving.

We took Tale of the Fast-Driving Stripper to heart, and religiously kept the needle at 70 mph for the rest of the way. Oh, how we hated that! We were passed by pickup trucks, other minivans, Jettas, a Beetle, a couple Hyundais and even a damn Saturn or two! An 18-wheeler passed us once, even. But we kept it at 70 mph, fearing a CHP hat trick.

With luck, we made it to our flat in Green Valley without further unfortunate encounters with law enforcers. But we did notice two more CHP cars and a San Bernardino County sheriff’s department cruiser, too. Our theory: A combination of the end of the month of April (when “work product” standards — some people call them quotas) need to be filled, and perhaps a greater enforcement push in order to reduce accidents.

Now, you’ll notice that we haven’t complained about our plight: We broke the law, and we’ll take our punishment (in this case, a fine). The officers who nailed us were just doing their jobs, and both did them in a professional way, even if it seemed like an involuntary high colonic performed with a jackhammer at the time. The only responsibility for both tickets lies squarely on us, and our lead foot.

But seriously, folks: 70 mph? At 70 mph, we were a hazard to navigation on the freeway. Isn’t it time to consider raising those speed limits to a more realistic level, one at which most people drive? We’re thinking between 80 mph and 90 mph, or perhaps 100 mph as an outside limit?

In the meantime, if you see the distinctive green Honda bearing our trademark Happy Shark logo putting along at 70 mph on the freeway, you’ll know it’s us, doing our road penance, ruminating about the sure-to-happen bump in our insurance rates and gazing intently into the rear-view mirror, hoping to avoid those telltale lights.