If you’ve come looking for information on the River Cruises with Mike Cooper and me, click here for a link to Wednesday’s journal that has all the details. By the way, Gerry will be responding to your emails all weekend, including Monday. 
 
I guess that given how many movies I’ve seen in the past few months as I get ready for the Oscars (yes, call it my new hobby) it had to happen eventually. Dazed from a film, I’d wander where I shouldn’t. What’s surprising is that in all of my life, I don’t think I’ve done this once before: I walked into a men’s room. 
 
The explanation is pretty simple: at the theatre where we went to see The Shape of Water, Rob and I visited the “facilities” before the show. You never know how long one of these movies is going to be (unless you pay attention when you’re researching it online) and with a movie that has “water” in its title, you can’t take any chances!
 
When the film ended, we were both deep in thought and conversation about what it was that we’d seen, how we would categorize or describe it and so on. We used a different set of doors to access another flight of stairs up to the washrooms. And just as I’d done before the movie, I took the first door on my right. Which was not right. It was oh-so wrong.
 
The first thing I noticed was the smell. Beaucoups de Pee Pee. Then I looked up just as one man who’d had his back to me turned towards the door and saw me. Which could half explain why, as Rob tells me, there’s always a puddle on the floor at the base of the urinals. But that’s too much information. I said, “Oh! I’m so sorry!” and high-tailed it out of there just as fast as I could.
 
Of course, standing outside the door was Rob, who was about to enter the men’s room and was wondering what the heck I had gone in there for. He pointed at the picture of the stick figure on the door and said, “What did you think – she was wearing a pantsuit?”
 
I gave him a “har-de-har” laugh and asked if he’d apologize to the men in the washroom. He did – and they said, “That’s okay.” But who do you think we had to catch up with and pass (in a hurry, I might add) on our way out of the theatre? Those two men and their wives. I’m sure they’d already told the gals about the woman who walked in on them.
 
But here’s the thing: if I hadn’t made it to my own gender’s washroom, I sure would have needed to in about one minute. I got a text from my boss, Susan Knight at Ocean 98.5. She said, “Are you parked in the lot?” and I was. Rob and I had pulled into the station parking lot, taking advantage of free parking just two or three blocks from the movie theatre. “Because you’re about to get towed!!!”
 
We texted back a bunch of messages ending with more exclamation marks and, in so doing, I learned that we’d parked in the building owner’s spot. (Unlike in Toronto, Ted Rogers’ family doesn’t own the buildings other radio stations call “home.”) We were confused about what we’d been told when I started there back in May and obviously we’d parked in his spot before. My business card was on the dash; that’s how Susan knew to text me. Thank goodness I’d done that!
 
Long story short, we ran from the theatre to the parking lot, where we were told by a stern older man that we had come very close to getting towed. (Susan vouched for that: she saw him call and then call off the tow truck company.) I’ve never been towed in my life; neither has Rob. One first in one day is plenty, thank you very much!
 
Have a great weekend and thanks for coming by. I know you have a long one ahead (unless you’re a federal government worker) so I’ll take Monday off here with you and return on Tuesday.