I suppose it's a good day when the worst thing that happened was that I woke up from a dream too early.

I was at Rich O's, of course. It seemed like it was just after work, but it must have been later than that because it was already dark outside.

I was sitting with NotHideousGirl, making small talk with her as she ate a salad. I was having some beer but I don't know what it was.

When NotHideousGirl was ready to leave, I offered to walk her to her car. Because it was dark, and also because there were hoodlums hanging around the car wash at night.

Back in the olden days, I'd often protect a certain friend of mine from the car wash hoodlums.

We went outside, and she didn't have the slightest idea where she had parked. So I took her hand and we started walking. There must have been a million cars spread out across ten thousand parking lots. But that was okay. I'd walk with her and make sure that she got to her car safely. Because I'm nice and shit.

It was quite innocent, really. I held her hand because it just seemed like the natural thing to do. It wasn't like this at all. But I still liked it.

After we'd walked about a gazillion miles away from Rich O's without seeing any cars that looked even remotely like hers, NotHideousGirl suddenly remembered where she'd parked.

"Fuck," she said. "I'm parked right outside the door. We must have walked right by my car."

So we turned around and started walking back toward Rich O's. It was really quite nice. Walking along, holding hands with a pretty girl. All of the hoodlums were staring at us, but they weren't doing any of their catcalling or any of their other usual antics. I was protecting my friend from crap like that. I was useful.

Then, all of a sudden, NotHideousGirl saw something off to the right. I didn't get a good look myself, but there was something going down. It was some gang thing. Some revenge that one gang was exacting on another. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but I knew that it was dangerous for NotHideousGirl and me to be there.

NotHideousGirl let go of my hand, and she started running back towards Rich O's. I ran after her as well as I could, but it was like I was running underwater or something. NotHideousGirl was literally running circles around me - desperate to keep moving, but unwilling to leave me behind. As she ran circles around me, she kept grabbing my hand and trying to pull me along with her. I wanted to go faster, but I just couldn't.

After a very long time, we finally got to NotHideousGirl's car. She got in and sped away.

By this time I was pissed. There I'd been, having a perfectly wonderful time, and then those fucking gang-bangers had gone and ruined everything. There I was, in my own fucking dream, and these punks had spoiled everything.

I decided to go and kick all of their punk asses. I started walking back to where the commotion had been taking place, but I woke up.

Fuck!

Those punks got soooooo lucky. I was going to mess them up real good. I was going to grab them by their ankles and swing them around and slam their heads into the ground. I was going to fucking kill them for ruining my sweet hand-holding dream.

But instead, I woke up.