I've always hated dreaming while sick.

I've been feeling generally out of sorts for the last week then today, despite the soothing sounds of the falling rain, I just couldn't get comfortable or relax. It took me a while to fall asleep.

So in the dream I was a docent leading a tour in a very odd museum. There were dinosaur bones and signed guitars, african tribal decorations and 70's television stars on display in glass habitats. At some point, an alarm started going off. I abandoned my tour group and went running to find the source. I ended up in a maze of halls with a number of people running and screaming endlessly. Apparently we had a living, giant-sized, great white shark on display. It had broken through the glass of it's exhibit (there was no water for some reason) and it was flopping down the hallways, trying to catch the panicked visitors. Someone then pulled me aside to say that we needed to evacuate the building.

So I tried. I really did. And somewhere along the way a fire broke out too. But, aside from those screaming people outside the shark's exhibit, I was unable to grab anyone's attention. The moment they turned away, they seemed to forget all about the emergency and went right back to whatever they were doing. So I ran outside to the firemen who were attaching their trucks and to the animal control people who were tying together a really big net. I shouted at them, frantically, saying "help! there are people inside that won't listen and won't come out!" but they just replied "we know, and it's so sad".

So I went back inside, went to the food court (yes, for some reason the museum had a full mall foodcourt), and ordered an ice cream cone. The guy behind the counter asked me why I looked so sad. So I told him what was going on and that I hadn't been able to save anyone. He was astonished and asked why I hadn't come to him sooner. Motioning for me to follow, he opened a door in the back of his little shop and led me down a short flight of stairs. They led to a small garage with a large covered object in the center taking up most of the room. With a flourish, he pulled the the cover aside to reveal an ostentatiously decorated ice cream truck that looked like it had perhaps been covered with glue and driven through a mardi gras parade. It had streamers and kazoos and beaded jewelry and all manner of other party favors covering every single inch.

He slid behind the wheel and motioned for me to climb in the back. He fired up the engine and I started turning a large crank set in one wall to operate the music. Together we slowly drove around the outside of the museum and damned if people didn't start flooding outside, looking for the truck. We ended up saving nearly everyone (except for one guy who was disappointed we ran out of rocky road and went back inside).