Pleasant dreams, weirdo.

I've always been taught that making random comments to total strangers is, if not outright rude, at least a tad presumptuous. Call me Prudie McPrudypants if you must, dear readers, but I've been at the receiving end of a ton of such comments. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes obnoxious, but they're always a bit - I don't know - jarring. Whether the comment is meant to be positive or negative, I always find myself wondering why I was its target.

The time: January 2006. The scene: the Beverly Center parking lot, West Hollywood. My friend Tabitha, whom I have mentioned several times in this fair blog, had flown down to LA from San Fransisco to partake in New Year's Eve festivities with me. We spent an absolutely scandalous evening sipping champagne and eating pastries while watching movies in our PJ's. Exciting, no?

Well, no. Cut us some slack, though - we hadn't seen each other in months, and decided we'd rather spend time catching up one on one than sucking face with total strangers in some random bar at midnight (we've done that as well, dear readers, but that's another story for another time).

Ahem. On New Year's Day, we decided to head to the Beverly Center to take advantage of the holiday sales. Predictably, the mall was completely packed. After driving around for a few minutes, we finally found a spot at the far end of the lot, and began walking towards the mall entrance.

As we neared the escalator, we caught the attention of a skinny, teenaged Asian boy who was loitering in the lot. He had his hands in his pockets and was shuffling back and forth. "Hello, beautiful ladies!" he called out across the lot. "I dream of you every night!"

Strange, that. We were just minding our own, dressed down, not making anything close to a scene. The kid wasn't dangerous; just dangerously clueless. But still - dude, how do you dream about me every night when you've never seen me before? Silly rabbit. I shouldn't ask those kinds of questions, or my head might explode!