When one door closes another opens.
Writing an article about yourself feels like just about the most narcissistic thing you can do, but when I returned to the Vista Radio office in Prince George from my holiday with this story, my boss (Hartley Miller) insisted I do just that.
With that in mind, here we go.
#
We all love a bargain and I am no different.
Two friends and I decided to check out a local thrift shop while on vacation this week in Vancouver.
These two guys, Corey and Seamus, had been on Canadian soil for less than 24 hours – arriving from Alabama and the UK for the wedding of two of our closest friends – and they wanted to see what they could find for a souvenir.
While in the store, one deal, in particular, caught our eyes: a large collection of full-sized wooden doors for only $2 each. It was too good to pass up, but what would we do with it?
That evening, we would be headed to downtown Vancouver’s Granville Street, an area I became well acquainted with while studying at BCIT.
After some discussion, the plan was simple: bring the door with us, and see how many people we could get to sign it throughout the evening.
We debated the logistics of this a lot while in the thrift store. How would the logistics of that work, and would anyone actually go along with it? We were pushed over the edge when another customer, Chris, piped up and told us to do it, and that he would be the first to sign.
With his signature, our three signatures, and the signature of Len, the owner of our Air BNB who briefly thought we were stealing a door out of his house, the ball was rolling.
The first major hurdle was getting this roughly 8-foot tall door onto a city bus – at rush hour no less.
Somehow, we convinced our driver that it was imperative that the door had to come with us on our journey, and he let us on.
While we received our fair share of stares, we rode that bus for 30 minutes into the heart of downtown.
There was plenty more weird stares and dodged eye contact while we walked up the sidewalk with the door, which now had “SIGN ME” written on the top of both sides.
The first people to be brave enough to validate our little experiment was a punk rock band performing on the sidewalk, who were eager to sign and design our door. One of them wrote “Life is beautiful” on the middle-front area, which quickly became our mantra for the day.
We planned to walk down the street about 10 minutes to a bar while picking up a signature or two on our way, then collecting more later once the ‘after work’ crowd was gone. That 10 minute walk ended up taking over two hours.
After the band signed the door, more people took notice. The more that people took notice, the more they signed, and the more they signed the more others felt comfortable – or even excited – to do the same.
In no time we were at a standstill on one part of the sidewalk, with lines forming for the Sharpie.
It went miles better than any of us expected. What we didn’t expect was for the door to land us a pile of free stuff as well.
Three ladies who signed our door returned with a pack of coloured Sharpies (which cost substantially more than the door itself) to really give it some life.
The bouncers at The Roxy, one of Vancouver’s most iconic nightclubs and concert venues, all signed our door and told us if we came back we could skip the line.
A manager from a bar ran outside to hand us coupons for discounted shots, and another manager at a different restaurant came out to sign the door from their patio alongside two of their customers.
One guy offered to buy it off us.
We were even offered free entrance at another certain 19+ establishment – we did not take them up on that offer, but it is always nice to feel wanted.
People from every corner of the globe signed the door, five or six different languages are represented on it now.
After an unforgettable evening, we decided we had to get the door safely back home and were running down the sidewalk to catch the last bus of the night.
It felt completely backwards and unexpected when the rush hour driver let us on, but that one didn’t, and we were left on the sidewalk.
Thankfully, a hero Uber driver came to our rescue, loaded the door, and got us home with our most prized possession.
The door is going to be making its way to Prince George next week (with a friend who is conveniently making the move) with signatures, art, and more from roughly 500 people.
What’s next for Vancouver’s most iconic piece of artwork?
Let’s just say we will leave the door open.
