The Dinosaur Boy of Victoria, Canada

It was a misty cloudy day in Victoria, Canada. My sister, Rory, and I had breakfast and then we walked to the Royal British Columbian Museum. It was a cool museum that was arranged chronologically. Prehistory was on the first floor and as you ascended the stairs you travelled forward through time.

Somewhere in the mid-1800s I started to experience gastrointestinal distress from my lovely breakfast omelet (oh! the betrayal). Now this was a popular museum, crowded with touring groups. I told my sister to wait for me by the old-timey saloon and proceeded to fart-walk out of the exhibit, but I was blocked by a group of nuns! Not wanting to crop dust the sisters, I tried the other way, but there was a sea of elementary school kids crashing through the First Nations exhibit. I decided to take my chances squeezing past the nuns, farting in front of the holy be damned.

Now, this whole back and forth I did in front of Rory who was doubled over howling with laughter. Her cackling echoed through the hallways like a Halloween sound effect.

I finally made it to the bathroom and I was relieved to find it was empty. Third floor of a five floor building? Unlikely to have a lot of traffic especially considering how difficult it was to find.

But then the door opened! I heard nothing at first, but then I heard the sound of heavy footsteps with wide pauses between each footfall. The door slid shut on the hydraulic brake and then I heard it, “Raaargh, Hhhhhaaaach,” it said. “Tsssssss… Hisssss.” I was suddenly reminded of the scene in Jurassic Park when the lawyer gets killed by the Tyrannosaurus Rex because it sounded like there was an actual dinosaur in the bathroom with me.

I peered through the gap in the stall door wondering who the hell was doing this. The footsteps came closer and then I saw an eye peering through the gap in the stall door, “Tsssss! Hissss!” a boy about the age of ten said. The gap was pretty wide, so I was able to get a good idea of what was happening. The boy was pacing the length of the bathroom, hunched over with his neck stuck out and his hands arranged in front of him like a velociraptor. His fingers hooked in the imitation of claws and pacing on his toes to imitate the articulated knees of a dinosaur.

As the kid paced around the bathroom I wondered, what the hell is this? Where’s this kid’s chaperone? Is he dangerous? Does he have a handler? Does he know I’m in here? He must! We made eye contact! Am I going to have to leave while this kid’s still acting like this? Was he going to attack me when I went to wash my hands? How far was he willing to take this fantasy?

If I was going to have to kick this kid in self-defense, who would ever believe this story? That I was threatened by not a boy, but a bloodthirsty velociraptor!

Rory, ever the person to relish a person’s embarrassment or pain for humor texted me, “Where the fuck did you go?”

“I’m trapped on the toilet by this kid who’s acting like a raptor,” I responded.

“ROFLMAO,” was her sadistic response.

Then, all of a sudden the door opened and the boy was gone. I left the bathroom and walked back to where my sister was waiting. She was still laughing so hard that she literally couldn’t stand up. The nuns looked at her much like the nuns in Illinois looked at her, like they could see something demonic that the layperson could not see. Teachers guided their students away from her maniacal laughter and cast their eyes about for whoever was responsible for this mental patient.

I myself spent the rest of my time in that museum casting my eyes around looking for some strange kid acting like a dinosaur, but I didn’t see him. Or maybe he’d just turned back into a human boy. I started to wonder about him, was this just some normal kid who every once in a while felt the need to become a dinosaur and hid it by going to the bathroom? Or maybe a dinosaur trapped in a boys body who could only feel natural threatening strangers in public bathrooms?

Either way, I hope that someday that kid feels comfortable enough to free himself and act like a dinosaur in public, show the world his true self and stop freaking out tourists in museum bathrooms.