IT'LL REALLY TIE THE ROOM TOGETHER

Whether you're a criminal or happily square, there are some basic lessons that you should always keep in mind. For instance, don't attack the driver of a car while they're driving the car. Wait until they stop. This is especially true if the driver's a cabbie, whose reflexes are a bit shaky as it is.

Kevin Model, 40, ignored that in those wee hours of Sunday morning. During the ride from Manhattan to E. Williamsburg, according to the Post, Model got cranky. He started yelling at the cabbie about something or another, then stuck his arm through the partition in an effort to sock him.

The 29-year-old cabbie, not knowing what else to do, aimed the taxi for the nearest lamppost.

The car was trashed, but both men survived.

Here's another lesson: Whenever they show up naked and screaming, you gotta figure there's a problem. That's what folks in the Rockaways figured Sunday afternoon when the naked man climbed out of the water behind a gas station, entered a construction site, climbed atop a trailer, and began screaming.

Along with threatening to jump off the 15-foot trailer, the man (about whom little was known except for his nakedness) screamed he wanted his mommy and daddy, and didn't want to die.

Cops showed up, tasered him, wrapped him in a straightjacket and took him away.

That five-story knockoff mall on the corner of 27th & B'way just can't catch a break. A few months back they were raided by the cops, who confiscated a ton of bootleg designer clothing. This past Monday, a shoplifter desperate to look his best whipped out a boxcutter and slashed the two guys who tried to stop him. One got away with a minor cut, but the other man was taken to Bellevue with a neck wound. The thief was picked up later as he hung out at Madison Square Park, admiring his new duds.

The knockoff place may have its troubles, but it ain't no Staten Island Mall. If the shoplifters ain't hitting the Penny's there, they're over hitting the Sears. And they just keep getting stupider. Late Sunday afternoon, 35-year-old Molina Fidela walked into Sears, and tried to leave again a few minutes later carrying a rug. Yes, a rug.

He didn't get very far.

Stupidity may run rampant in the city's criminal population, but we're happy to report one bank robber out there has been paying attention.

Early Wednesday afternoon, he walked into a 7th Ave. branch of Commerce Bank and demanded money. According to the Post, the teller, as instructed, handed over a bag full of moolah. But the thief, being a touch brighter than most, took a peek inside the bag where, lo and behold, he saw one of those silly exploding dye packs.

Instead of panicking, the robber calmly reached into the bag, plucked out the dye pack, handed it back to that sneaky teller, and fled.

No word whether or not the dye pack then exploded.