My Almost Bill Murray Moment

The other day, while on my travels, I stopped at my local bus station to get a bus pass and then use the bathroom.

This bus station is a very nice one.  It has a very retro 1920's feel to it (Okay, I'm no historian.  Anywhere from 1920's to 1950's even.  Doesn't matter, just know it's pretty cool).  They keep this place in almost pristine condition.  I believe one of the reasons is because Anytown is a bit of a hotspot for Hollywood to come and shoot their movies here, and this bus station makes an excellent location for a period piece.

As I walked into the gleaming ladies room I saw the penthouse stall wide open, immaculately clean, kind of beckoning to me.  It was pretty quiet at the bus station and I figured I wasn't hurting anybody by using that one so I went in and that's when I saw this on the shiny, stainless steel partition wall:

Is it?

Could it be?

I wasn't sure but I was very excited at the possibility.  And by "excited" I mean I couldn't have been more thrilled if I had walked in on a real live unicorn taking a rainbow coloured dump in there.  I don't have much of a bucket list but, at the top of that list is to have a Bill Murray moment.  I mean, there can be no doubt as to just how awesome Bill Murray truly is.  He is  BETTER than a unicorn, because he's twice as magical and actually exists!

For a moment I believed that I was sharing a personal moment with Mr.  Murray.  I stood there, where he might have once stood, reading his personal special message for me written by his hand, that should have been in the men's room but wasn't.  I got to see this because I am a woman using the women's bathroom!  I felt like I knew how Mary Magdalene must have felt when Jesus appeared to her after His resurrection.  I had to go and spread the message of Bill!

I have no internet on my phone so I had to wait until I got home to try and verify this graffito.  I wasn't about to call City Hall, the local media and the bus station and demand they turn that bathroom stall into an historic monument without proof!  It took freaking forever.  I had so much nervous energy I ran part of the way home.  I did a Google image search and came up with this:

So not a precisely, exactly matching.  There is enough of a difference to cause my skeptic senses to go all tingly.  What do I do?  I pride myself on being skeptical, of not just believing something simply because I really, really want it to be true.  But I really, really, REALLY, want this to be true.  It's not quite a Bill Murray moment but this is probably the closest I will ever get.  This is the most magical thing that has happened to me since that night my parents got one of their friends to dress up as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and woke us kids up to meet him.

So I'd love you readers to weigh in.  Here is my case:

Reasons Why This Isn't Really The Bill Murray's Real Graffito:

1) The hand-writing isn't a perfect match.

2) Anyone could have written this.  It is a public bus station after all.  Maybe it was just a BIll Murray superfan expressing their appreciation of Bill "Facking" Murray.  Or maybe it was just someone who happened to have the same name and thought a lot of that fact.  And then decided to put it on a women's bathroom wall.

3) Nothing this awesome could really happen to me in real life.

Reasons Why It's Totally, Really and For True, Bill Murray's Graffito!!!

1)  He could have been in Anytown.  As I said, lots of movies are shot here.  For all I know Bill Murray was in that bus station filming a movie and had this opportunity to leave his mark, knowing full well the staff would remove it probably soon after.

2)  If Bill Fucking Murray were to write his name on a bathroom wall in Anytown it would be done in this way, in this bus station, in this bathroom in this stall.  He would write "fucking" as "facking".  He would do it with a flourish and he would put a period of emphasis at the end because he is Bill Fucking Murray.  He would see this empty bathroom in an empty(?) bus station and say "I am Bill Fucking Murray and I will piss in the ladies' room right now just because I can (and maybe no one else is around) and hell yeah, I will piss in the penthouse stall and if I'm going to do that I will make sure at least one person has some idea that I did it."

3)  If Bill Murray were to do all of the above he would do it in just such a way that no one will ever believe you.

4)  The signature isn't an exact match  but it's also not that different.  I would argue that the "m" is very similar.  Also, when you write your name on a wall OF COURSE it's not going to be the same as your signature on a piece of paper!  Why would it be?  It's just graffiti, not a cheque (or autograph).  Writing on an upright surface is very different than writing on a horizontal surface, so why wouldn't the hand-writing have some differences, too?

And since it seems I have more reasons to believe this was really and truly Bill Murray, I am going to go ahead and believe.  Because it makes me feel happy.  This is the Magic of Bill Murray.  I still want to know in the comments what you all think of this, but I'm just saying my world is a brighter place because of my near-Bill experience.



Bill Murray, I have loved every single thing you have ever done.  Everything.  Even Garfield.  Thank you for taking an unconventional leak in my town.

Drama at the Swimming Pool

My kids have been bugging me all summer to go to the public swimming pool at the end of our street.  It's a really nice outdoor pool with a little splash pad in a corner of the shallow end for the babies and plenty of pool toys: noodles, beach balls, colourful rings and the like.  I've been waiting for the perfect day to take them but it's been a cold and rainy summer this year.

Well, today was that day.

When we got there Frack managed to find us a ball and the boys started tossing the ball back and forth over the buoy rope that separates the deep end from the shallow end (Frack's not allowed in the deep end, not even with me).  I liked this game because it was the nicest they have played together for the longest stretch of time so far this summer.

I didn't much like getting hit in the face the odd time by one of these balls (who would?) but it was never a big deal.  It was always by accident and the kids were always quick to apologize.  Hey, what're you gonna do?  You're at a public pool with lots of kids.  Balls go flying (snert), people sometimes get hit.  That's why it's a good thing these beach balls weigh next to nothing and it doesn't hurt at all.

So I thought it was very interesting when one time Frick failed to catch the ball, it landed a few feet away from an older woman swimming and, unlike every other person there who would have simply passed the ball back to him, angrily grabbed the ball and hurled it out of the pool.

Overreact much?

Frick climbed out of the pool to get it and gave me a bewildered "what the hell is her problem?" look.  I just shrugged my shoulders back at him and we went back to playing.

I've been observing people for a lot of years, and I have developed a pretty keen eye for crazy.  My gut was telling me to keep an eye on this woman because it would be only a matter of time before she delivered some quality WTF behaviour.  And deliver she did....

We spent another 15 minutes tossing the ball back and forth when Frack, trying to throw the ball as high and far as possible (as 6-year-olds do), unintentionally hit her square in the face as she was floating on her back.  Of all the people he could have hit, of course it had to be her.

I have to confess: being the awful and terrible person that I am, my knee-jerk reaction to this was to laugh.  I know.  I am going to hell.  I covered that shit up quickly though, so as to attempt to be a good role model for the kids and turned to Frack to tell him to be more careful when throwing the ball.

Then I turned to look over at the deep end where Frick and the lady were to make sure she was okay, and this is what I saw:

This woman was angrily grabbing Frick with one hand, twisting his arm in an unnatural direction, and holding the ball up out of his reach with the other while yelling at him.

Here is a list of possible reactions she could have had with which I would be totally okay:

-yelling at Frick (I'll disagree with the necessity of this, but I get it.  You're irritated and not very well-adjusted and you just got hit the in the face with a ball.  This at least has the advantage of not involving a physical altercation.)

-yelling at Frack who, after all, was the one who threw the ball.  (But if you have to get that angry at some strange 6-year-old kid for what was obviously an accident, then you need to step back and re-evaluate the situation.)

-complaining to the lifeguard (What a sane person would do)

-complaining to me (Also what a sane person would do)

Or you know, rub your face a little, maybe glare at the kid a little, and then move on with your life.  What most people would do.  I know this because I watched several other people get hit in the face with these balls (snert) and that's exactly what they did.  They didn't even find the glaring part necessary.  I guess because they realize that they are at an open swim at a public pool where about a hundred kids are splashing and throwing balls around and have adjusted their expectations accordingly.

I am definitely NOT OKAY with anyone man-handling (woman-handling?) my son for any reason whatsoever.

"HEY!  YOU GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY KID RIGHT NOW!!!"

I am not easily ignored.  I was in drama for years, bitches.  There they teach you how to PROJECT.  From the DIAPHRAGM.  Everyone around us had stopped what they were doing to stare, but this woman kept going as if she didn't hear me at all.  I don't know for sure how long the altercation took.  All I can say is that I screamed at her to let go of my son half a dozen times before she finally did.

Looking back I have no idea why I didn't shout for help.  I totally should have.  It's just that no one has ever been able to ignore my screaming-from-the-diaphragm-mama-banshee voice before. When I looked at the lifeguard she just looked really confused like she had only just now noticed what was happening.

Crazy "It's MY ball now!" Lady swam over to the lifeguard to complain, while Frick swam over to me.

"I tried to apologize to her but she just grabbed me and kept yelling at me!"

He said his arm hurt but she didn't leave any marks on him and he was otherwise okay.  As soon as I knew he was okay I marched the three of us over to the lifeguard to do some complaining of my own.  At first the look on her face said "That lady told me what your son did to her".   But by the time I was finished talking she just looked horrified and apologized profusely.

Next she called over the other lifeguard who was older and more intimidating looking than her.  About a minute later he is talking to Crazy "I have no sense of boundaries" Lady.

"Ma'am?  I'm going to need you to get out of the pool."

Crazy Lady sashayed out of the pool with her head held high and her nose in the air.  Seriously.  I don't throw around the word "sashay" lightly.

I'm trying to get the boys to play a different game that doesn't involve balls (snert) when I notice that she is packing up her things.

"I think they're kicking her out!" laughs Frick.

He's right because now she is sashaying herself out the exit.

"Shh!" I tell him.  "Don't laugh.  Not right now anyway.  When we get home you can laugh all you like.  But it's not nice to look too happy about this."

"But you are happy about it, right Mommy?"

"Yes I am.  I am very happy about it."