For reasons transparent only to my subconscious mind, my college had a dorm room on top of a train. The poor students assigned there had to live in drywall and plywood boxes that constantly circled the city on the subway lines. Not surprisingly, these flimsy structures were frequently damaged. My dream began while the college was in the process of reconstructing them, as well as the subway tracks.
Some friends and I decided to ride a still roofless dorm room over to our apartment building. Since the subways were not running due to construction, the dorm room had to toddle along on a remote controlled train base. Eventually, the tracks led up to the surface, where we ran into a slight problem. When the college said "reconstructing tracks" they apparently meant creating a 100ft deep gulf where the rails used to be and bridging them with precariously placed stones. A worker laying the stones greeted us as we slowed to a halt.
"Hey, worker man," I yelled, "how can we get across?"
"Well, you could rent one of these $300 per hour lifters and lay some stones." He gestured to a hand powered fork-lift.
"Not going to happen. You're already working. How long til it's done?" He did not seem to appreciate my tone, and I did not seem to care. We bickered for a while, and I may have made insulted the dorm-train system a few times, but eventually, we came to understand one another. Through cooperation, he, my friends and I managed to construct a temporary ramp and drive our impractical vehicle across. Once safely on the ground, I leaped out of the room and grabbed the worker.
"Oh my gosh, do you know what this is like?"
"Um." He tried to pry me off of him to no avail.
"It's like...the first episode...of My Little Ponies."
"Okay, you seriously need to let go of me."
"No, listen! We had a problem, and the only way to overcome it...was through friendship." I had started to slur my words and lose my balance, so apparently friendship is a type of alcohol in this dream. My cohorts dragged me away and I forgot about the whole affair until a week or two later.
"Hey," my academic adviser greeted me as I passed her on the way to class, "Did you ever finish the application for an iPad?"
"What?"
"Don't you read your emails? Every month, we reward people exhibiting a different character trait. They have to be nominated to apply, and you got a nomination for your dorm-train affair."
"Really? But I was the most obnoxious person in the group. How did you even hear about it?"
"The worker didn't find you obnoxious. He went out of his way to tell us about you."
I blushed but then promised to check my email. This entailed, for reasons I cannot fathom, going to a minivan in the middle of an empty parking lot. Inside the van, I found a bed. This did not surprise me. What did surprise me was that the bed had been made with a fuzzy blue blanket and silver sheets.
"Ah, this is an elaborate email," I thought to myself as I opened the "email" by pulling down the covers. Tucked between the sheets, I found a pamphlet with all the relevant information on how to apply for the chance to win an iPad. The name of the contest was The Brave and the Bros: Courage and Friendship in Troubling Times. The main part of the application was an essay explaining the experience for which one had been nominated.
All I could think about this was "Crap, more work."
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