So my mom took me out to lunch at the freakin Olive Garden today. I love my mom, but you know, it's one of those family things that you just kind of endure and wait to get back to real life, you know?

Anyway, while we're eating, I'm jarred by a blast of horns. I tense, worried about my faction ratings, start thinking about avoiding the Securitrons, I may even have Deathclaws or Cazadors to deal with ... Dean Martin was playing on the restaurant P.A. with "Ain't that a Kick in the Head".

I considered talking about it with Mom, but come on, how could I really make her understand? Gamer talk isn't going to make sense to her. So I just kept talking to her about our jobs, and little things from day-to-day real life. Now I'm home though and it's back to the wasteland.

Anybody else have good stories about New Vegas intruding awkwardly into the real world?

I had a dream last night that me and some of my friends were in some post-apoc place where it was cold and windy. We were trying to find safe places to sleep where looters and cutthroats wouldn't find us. We also had to come up with a plan to go and get another friend with a broken leg that was hiding in a car covered by a canvas tarp. That's about it so far.

Lay off the mescaline, Duke.

Not New Vegas but I carry a knife on my hip daily and there were a few times when I was overtired when going into the DC metro stations brought about the idea of raiders and ferals...caught myself before anything happened but got odd looks and a lot of distance from quite a few people.