I suddenly find myself sitting in some nondescript airport restaurant as a result of a greatly delayed flight due to summer storms. With much time to kill, I break out my MacBook Pro, my M-Box, and a pair of headphones. I order breakfast. I work on some editing. I typically take this stuff with me so I can get work done if I get a little room to work with. At the moment, I have room, and I have time.

I'm sitting alone at a table for four, on the outside edge of the dining area. Only a low, table-height iron fence separates my dining experience from the hoards of other delayed travelers. Many others, it seems, have decided to do as I've done. They opt for breakfast and a chance to knock out the constant backlog of work we seem to have in modern life.

I order what appears to be eggs benedict. Coffee. Water.

As I mix splenda and half & half into my coffee, a couple sits at a table behind me. The woman is fairly attractive. I don't really notice what the man looks like. As the check comes, I take off my headphones and begin to pack up my gear. I figure it is about time to head back through security, not knowing how long that will take this time. I've taken this risk before and lost. Most recently at JFK in New York. On the way out, security tells me it will only take a few minutes to get back through, and that they have a special line for folks that came out to smoke or eat.

When I remove my headphones, the couple engages me in conversation. This is typical, as many who work in entertainment know. Once they see the gig bag in the overhead, they ask you who you play with, right? But these folks are different. They seem to engage me as if they have something to gain by the conversation. Of course, they have no clue that I'm of little benefit to them. At least that's what I think at the time.

I suppose the mistake I make at this point was placing my wallet on the table as I insert my credit card slip into the jacket with the bill for breakfast. As I wait for the waiter to pick up the card, I begin to get a big anxious. I'm now pushing the limits of my delayed flight. The couple keeps engaging me. Distracting me at this point. I'm kind of getting annoyed, but they are so friendly, and I don't want to be rude. I like to treat people well, no matter if I'm annoyed.

I reach my hand in the air to signal the waiter as he heads my direction. I catch his attention, and he nods my direction.

At this moment, I literally feel my wallet slip from under my fingers, which sit lightly atop it. As I turn my attention this direction, I see a man with my wallet now within his fingers, quickly accelerating away from me. Now this time, I get a pretty solid idea of what the guy looks like.

As I start to give chase, I glance back, and the couple says, "we'll watch your stuff, GO!"

Amazingly, I'm catching up with him. Dark hair under a green ball cap. As he runs away, suddenly he stops. He and another man exchange items. I'm confused. Right as I get there, they split and both run. I chose the new person. I don't know why. I could no longer see my wallet.

At this point my activity has clearly caught the eye of security and everyone else in the departing flights area. I'm yelling for people to stop the people. Someone tackles the first guy as I pursue the second. The other guy stops suddenly and exchanges items with two women! I can't believe it! Now I have three more people to chase. I must chose one. I keep yelling for help for people to stop them. Security is approaching from the other side.

As I arrive at the intersection of the man and two women, he takes off. I happen to catch the two women with a full body blow to the first, and as my momentum transfers through her, she knocks down the second.

Even more amazing, I see my wallet fly from the second woman's hands!

Security comes up and literally takes us all by the neck and forces us to the ground. I explain as things begin to calm down. Having now found my wallet on the floor, security begins to understand the reconstruction of events. I'm allowed to stand up now.

I'm amazed at all the effort that has gone into something as simple as lifting a wallet from a guy! I mean, there's been at least four or five people involved at this point. Have they done this before? One has to wonder. Ironically, I only had about sixty dollars in my wallet at the time, so even if I'd not caught up with it, it wouldn't have been that big of a deal, right?

Then it hits me. I realize that it's all a trick. I'm allowed by security to return to retrieve my personal items left at the restaurant. But even as I walk that way, accelerating my pace with every step, my heart tells me the reality of the situation.

At the restaurant, there's no couple. Only an empty table. My bag of gear is also absent. Thousands of dollars of recording equipment, and even more importantly, my hours upon hours of work of editing on my most recent project is now gone. Sure, I have a back up on my home system, but, that back up is minus about thirty hours of solid work at this point.

I sit down at the table, and the waiter arrives with my credit card and asks me to sign one copy and leave the other with him.

I simply sign the copy, take mine, and walk away.

Suddenly I find myself in a hotel room with light peering through the window directly in my eyes. I look to my right, and my wife, five months pregnant, sleeps like a brick, seemingly unaware of the light. I arise and go to my computer. I pull up safari, and log on to NMP in order to write this amazing story that unfolded in my dreams only moments before. That's right. I'm typing this now on the very same computer I dreamed of having stolen the night before.

Sorry to have sucked you in and then slapped you in the face! LOL.