It started with me being in a helicopter. 

The earth had been overrun with aliens that took over human bodies. We were fighting them and losing. They had pushed the remaining government up into the mountains where we were fighting them. 

The helicopter I was flying was coming in from the lowlands, it felt like the Russian transport from BF2. I had some government officials on board. One of them was Ronnie Cox, but he was a cabinet secretary or something. I also had Karen Hayes (from Homeland Security on 24) with me. Both were coming to the mountain stronghold to route out traitors.

As I flew in over the valley, the enemy troops --our own people now alien possessed-- were on one side, and the defenders on the other. They were shooting at each other in a non-stop barrage of artillery and gunfire. I came down and saw an enemy transport --a bit like an APC-- barreling down the side of the hill to try and break through the line. 

I knew this was extremely bad. Like contact with the aliens was enough to infect humans or something. I veered the helicopter to ram the APC, apparently regardless of my passengers[1], but moments before contact, it swerved out the way and vaulted over the crest of the hill. As it did, it actually leapt into the air and arced into a mountain lake, where it promptly sank. I pulled the helicopter up and crashed it to the ground nearby. 

Leaping out of the wreck, I was very close to the firing defense line. They had piles of weapons left on the ground --not neatly stacked or anything, just a mix-mash pile of hand guns, assault rifles and whatnot. The idea was to forget about reloading, just grab something else and start shooting. I grabbed an assault rifle with a bayonet and started shooting at the water, but they never came up.

From there, Ronnie Cox and Karen Hayes had disappeared. I started running down the line for the doorway to the mountain complex all kinds of explosions and gunfire going off around me.

Once inside, I was met by Tine (who never said or did anything in the dream, but was there) and that psycho-chick, also on 24. The one with the blank face who thinks everyone's out to rape her? 

Anyway, she started telling me that the aliens had gotten inside the governments of the world and the only way to defeat them was to nuke certain places. Cox was now acting president and he was going to put the plan into effect.

But as she was talking I realized she was one of them. And that Hayes and Cox were probably them too and had been for a long time, using me to get to the stronghold to trigger the nukes.

I pushed her aside and ran down the corridor to the backside of the stronghold. There, it opened to the other side of the mountain. There, carved into the opposite mountain was a city complex. It looked a lot like the temple in Indian Jones and the Holy Crusade that's carved in the desert. Except it was bigger and more high-tech. In the center, on top was a large video screen with a small, indented circle in the center. 

I knew that, in order to trigger the nukes from here, Cox would have to line up a helicopter and transmit a code with a special laser. Luckily, I apparently had already disabled the laser. Standing on a ridge I watched as he flew up and hovered in front of the screen. But the laser wouldn't target the center button and I could see him getting angrier and angrier.

The he spotted me and turned the helicopter towards me. I aim the rifle and started shooting and the helicopter spun down to the valley floor and crashed. Then the valley wasn't that far away so I went down to make sure he was dead. At the crash site, he had been thrown from the helicopter. Curled into the fetal position and wasn't moving.

But I decided to take no chances and stabbed him with the bayonet several times to make sure. Then I climbed back up to the top to find Karen Hayes, but this is about where I woke up.

As of today, I've been at my current position for 6 years. 

The longest I held a job before this was 4. And that was something of a quirk as it was really 2 years at one location followed by 2 years at a second location with some time in the middle where I quit. But when I went back, it had only been about 3 months so I was allowed to keep my service.

So, 6 years ago today (which was also a Monday) I started in on really setting type and working up line art. Oh the joys that have come since then. 

...

Well, maybe if I think harder about it, those joys will come to me. 

About the only thing that makes this anniversary noteworthy is the fact that six years gets me my third week of vacation. Five extra days might not sound like much, but it will give us some welcome breathing room. There are so many times it would be helpful to take a day here or there for one kid being ill, or having an appointment or even just so I don't have to burn all my sick time. Heck, I might actually get to take more than one day for myself this year. 

The next hurdle? Four weeks is 11 years. 

It snowed today. 

I kid you not, it only amounted to a dusting on grassy areas, but it still freaking snowed. 

Lemme check the calander. 

Yup, still April. 

Freaky.

I don't think it would be so wise to go into the details. Especially since actual police involvement hasn't been 100% rules out, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nobody engages in any further stupidity. As noted elsewhere, children bring with them a host of problems that you can never be fully prepared to deal with. But sometimes there's this peripheral bullshit that happens which has only has a tenuous attachment to your children and that has such a blind-siding effect.

For the past three weeks there's been an annoying, but harmless little issue recurring. But is suddenly took a turn for the worse when I sought to reach out and have it stopped. What I assumed would be a few backstage words to wise were completely met with hostility and a blatant threat that it would continue. Most of that I blame myself for. I had choices in how to handle it and I chose what I was hoping would be the most low-key avenue and that turned out to be wrong. Even then, we had hopes that it was all talk and it would just blow over. 

Not the case. So the annoying little issue recurs and I'm backed into an unfavorable corner of either calling the police or visiting parents in the middle of the night. Neither of these is pleasant. I really don't want to call the cops if I can avoid it. Some people throw that kind of threat around, but not me. Once you call the cops, there's no going back. Once you file a legitimate and legal complaint you make it official and then all this other stuff can start to come into play and things can turn sour real fast. But visiting parents in the night doesn't sound appealing at all. I have no idea what kind of reception I'm going to get. They could be people who will take offense that I even just showed up, never mind implicate their kid in something. 

In the end, I have to go to the parents. If I can head off something before it gets worse, before I am forced to call the police, so much the better. And if I get a bad reception, I do still have that option of calling the police, and at least I've tried. 

So at 9:30, I'm down the street ringing their doorbell. I hate this. I am so not the confrontational type. Luckily, they turn out to be willing to listen. They hear what I have to say and they appear to believe me. None of that "Not my kid" or "Prove it." bullshit. I know if a parent showed up at my door in the middle of the night, there would have to be some truth to it. They offer up that it will all be taken care of. I get the responses I feel I need to hear and they seem like good people. They'll talk to their kids and hopefully this is all said and done.

But I'm still a little concerned. Also noted elsewhere, kids are stupid. Dumb as posts, sometimes. And while I worry daily about work, bills and the freaking soaring price of gas, they tend to dwell on other things that seem important at the time. So I still have to keep an eye out for some dumb teenager who might be thinking that showing me he's an unintimidated tough-guy is the most important thing on his agenda. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it's all said and done. That the annoying little issue will just go away, because it's not actually worth all this trouble. But it has reached a point where I have made myself more than clear. I've had to stand outside and cautiously engage another set of parents over issues relating to it. Hopefully someone has enough brains to realize how stupid this is and they should let it go.