on riding a bicycle to Costco

what would Bill Murray do?

Dear reader,

When you seek guidance, where do you turn?

For some it’s a priest or perhaps the bible.

Others, check their horror scopes.

Still more consult with friends.

A few fools speak with a therapist.

And then there are some who act like this fool and attempt to imagine the course of action taken by one of their heroes.

Christians for a number of years wore bracelets with the letters WWJD - What would Jebus do?

Trey Parker and Matt Stone challenged us to ask ourselves What would Bryan Boitano do?

Me?

I typically ask myself What would Bill Murray do?

Recently I was tasked with picking up a gift card from Costco for my fathers birthday.

I traveled there by bicycle.

Now dear reader, take a moment to contemplate the absurdity of my action.

I went to Costco - the store to buy cases by the truckload on a bicycle.

Given that everything about Costco is about making purchases at scale, I wasn’t that surprised to find that they didn’t have a bike rack.

No worries, I thought to myself, it’s Costco, I’ll just bring my bicycle inside.

This does not seem unreasonable for a myiad of reasons.

First?

The store is filled with families of fifty pushing two double wide shopping carts filling up the larders so they don’t have to leave the mobile home on the lot in the middle of nowhere for the next six to eight weeks.

And two?

They bloody well sell bikes.

One would think that’s fairly safe to say that a store with such wide isles and such diverse stock, they’d no bat an eye at a bike showing up.

Then again?

People are stupid.

And some stupid people get REALLY squirmy when bikes are involved.

I mean, I get it. If you’ve driven cars around Dartmouth your entire life, bikes make zero sense. It’s wet and cold here more often than it isn’t AND bikes are generally ridden by weirdos and poor people or angry people who shout at you when you cut them off in traffic.

Even worse?

They’re not ‘inside’ anything and have at times been known to pound on your car.

Well… That’s just me. I’m the one shouting and doing the pounding.

(When I lived in Toronto, I did at on time have a collection of passenger side mirrors that fell prey to my bike lock but that’s a story that I might not want to fully tell ;-)

Even worse?

Bikes are for ‘kids’. Who the hell wants someone who rolls though life, finding bliss in movement and a child like wonder engaging in the joy of simply being alive?

No self respecting Dartmorthian has any tolerance for such base and senseless frivolity!

Or at least this is what I imagined was going through the mind of the Lady Prune who greeted me at Costco on my gift card mission.

I walked up and produced my EXECUTIVE MEMBERSHIP CARD

I don’t think we allow bikes inside.

It was at this time I dug deep and thought: What would Bill Murray do.

Oh yes you do. It’s part of the executive membership package. I spoke these words with the full throated confidence of a Catholic Bishop denying his pedophilia.

It is? She stammered losing a bit of ground, I need to make a call…

Great, you make your call. I have some vegetables to fondle.

No wait here, I… Sir? Sir, Sir come back here!

It’s ok. I know Vinny. He works here. He told me it’s ok. He said to tell you that if there’s a problem call security and they’ll clear it all up.

But sir I need you to wait.. Sir!

I started making motor bike noises, dropped the pretend motor bike into gear and made my way into the depths of dis store.

I do not know a soul named Vinny. I had made no arrangements. I just did what I wanted to do.

It’s not that I don’t think that he rules don’t apply to me. I know they do.

But when the rules seem stupid or arbitrary, I’m so not interested in listening to some control freak explain their so called logic behind their power hungry dominance.

Because some rules are mere suggestions, especially if you’re packing an executive membership and a bicycle.

The real privilege isn't paying for a membership; it's knowing when to simply pedal past the gatekeepers and let them sputter into their walkie-talkies.

If you want to live life with the freedom of a fool, put a bit more Bill Murray in your operations manual.