Lately, my fantasy life has taken something of a twist.

It started off innocently: I found that by imagining just an extra few steps taken by Shelly from the front counter, I could easily reroute her from the water cooler to my desk. She would look around, and finding my cubicle unwatched, lean over and kiss me hard on the mouth. Her hair would fall into my face, smelling like a cross between the break room and unnamed perfume.

Sadly, these reveries invariably were interrupted by my boss, a ruddy sergeant named Potaski who always has muffin crumbs on his uniform. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’ve been signing the time card of a tree trunk. Look at you! Work!” I hate this man.

About a week ago I began replacing the nameless perps that had dominated my youthful imagination with real people, like Sarge. After one particularly fervent episode where I scuffled with and triumphantly jailed the dreaded Potaski, I came to, and minutes later noticed a red mark on my left palm, in the shape of a handcuff.