It’s so rare that I remember a dream, but I did yesterday morning because I was in the middle of it when my wife woke me.

In the dream, she and I were out walking, and we saw our minivan pull up in a nearby parking lot. That didn’t seem unusual; it was as if we’d left it with valet parking and this is where they brought it. But then two big guys got out of it, and they were wearing ski masks. We walked over to them, and when they saw us coming they pulled the masks off and stuffed them hastily away in pockets, trying to act innocent. My dream self realized that they had already stolen our bicycles (which we don’t even have anymore in reality) from the van. (Why they would’ve needed to wear the masks for that stage of the heist is beyond me, but there you have it.)

This knowledge emboldened me, and after that point they didn’t seem so physically big anymore. One was kind of squat and out of shape, and the other was lanky. I grabbed the tall guy’s ankles and had no trouble holding them still, and he was suddenly lying on the grass and somehow unable to reach me with his arms. I knew that my wife had the other guy similarly under control, and we were waiting for the cops to arrive when I woke up. I wonder how it would’ve turned out.