timothy's Journal: Great and interesting dreams!

I had two interesting, detailed dreams today! And then promptly forgot them. So instead, there's this one of the other day, which is clearly inspired by things like reading David Friedman:

I dreamed that I visited a friend at an apartment building in a big U.S. city. (NYC? Chicago?) The apt bldg had a sort of bouncer / security guard, who charged a fee to visitors as they left, for no visible reasons, other than that he was slightly intimidating.

Mostly because I didn't feel like causing trouble for my friend, I was resigned to paying the not-quite-thug his nine dollars, even though I resented it and knew it was just petty extortion. It was a sort of compromise that the residents had reached, which was considered normal: the guy really did exert an influence against intruders, but he constantly squeezed what he could from innocents, too.

However, when I gave him a 20-dollar bill, he handed me back only $1 in change. I protested; he denied that I'd paid him with a $20. So, we got in a fight, and I prevailed. I *should* have tried to get back my whole $20, or other people's money and given it back to them as well, but a) I had in fact agreed to pay the $9 initially, even if that was dumb and b) only on reflection (within the dream) did the larger unfairness sink in; mostly I was mad because he'd just baldly ripped me off, and I wanted to get my correct change back. So, once I had my $11 back, I was content to stop, and pleased that I had won.