For anyone who says nothing ever happens in Eau Claire, I suggest you spend a little time getting out and experiencing even the most mundane real-life adventure.

When you least expect it, something incredibly exciting, confounding, befuddling and magical can happen.

Case in point: Last week I went to the mall to get a few goods at low-low prices because stores bought too much for winter and it all went on clearance.

It was about 8 p.m. Monday night, and customers were steadily leaving the mall in an orderly fashion, unaware of the chaos about to ensue.

Before hitting the stores, I decided to consult the loo.

After I washed my hands and approached the door to the bathroom, something happened.

A woman walked into the men’s room.

No, don’t cue up the funky slap bass music from a skin flick. This isn’t that kind of story.

I smiled as I passed her on the way out, my body working on pure motorized instinct as confusion began to set in.

My mind reeled from all the crazy questions it faced for the first time in 22 years.

Was I in the right restroom?

What is she doing in there?

Did that even really happen?

That woman threw a wrench in the entire night. Up became down and everything flew apart in those brief seconds when she walked into the wrong bathroom.

As I exited the restroom, a dude of similar stature and age had the look of bewilderment I exuded.

We made eye contact.

We both turned our eyes toward the man and woman graphics on the entrances to the bathrooms, as if we had both made some sort of error.

Nope, we both were right. It really had happened.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said to my fellow man as I left him to wait outside the bathroom for whatever might happen next.

The event stuck in my head like a snappy tune you can’t help but hum after you hear it once on the radio.

Instead of mentally crippling me, the event plastered a smile on my face and put me in a good mood for the next day.

This is just one real-life adventure possible when you get past the stigma of how boring Eau Claire can be.

Four long years ago I had the idea that Eau Claire, just like my suburban hometown, was as plain and boring as dry white toast.

However, I really didn’t give the town a chance because my only trips off campus were quick dashes to the supermarket or a restaurant.

True, Eau Claire isn’t a mecca of the fun, fantastic and fascinating, but if you dig hard enough and go beyond the four walls of your room, there’s a lot going on.

Sometimes simply taking the wrong way home after work or class can provide ample entertainment.

If you are a pedestrian, wrong way signs are merely a suggestion, and you might want to wander down a dark road covered in overgrowth. At the end of that road, there might be an old lady giving away fresh-baked cookies, or at the very least, a free cat out of the 5,235 felines that skulk around her house.

I’m not even talking about doing something crazy like taking up spelunking or entering a hot dog eating contest.

Even everyday encounters can become epic tales if you look at them in the right light.

I knew a man who turned every minuscule interaction he had into a tale to rival the Homer’s “Odyssey.” He would burst into my room when I lived in Bridgman Hall and pull me aside to tell me something.

Often his stories went a little like this:

“OK, so I went to Hilltop, right, to get some dinner. And after I got my tacos and went to pay for my meal, I gave my Blugold card to the cashier. She was pretty cute, and she asked me, ‘Blugold or meal plan?'”

At this point, my friend’s eyes had an excited intensity to them and he told me his story as if he was divulging top-secret government information.

“So I said, ‘Meal plan,'” he said. “She took my card, scanned it and … she smiled at me.”

That was the story – the cashier smiled at him.

Though his stories seemed pretty silly at first, and very anti-climactic, I began to see the brilliance in them.

The pure zest with which my friend told the stories showed a philosophy that I wanted a piece of.

If every little thing becomes significant – every smile, wink and little event – then maybe I took too much for granted.

After that dawned on me, I began telling stories just like my friend, and it really made my life more interesting.

When the four walls of your room start to close in on you, remember there is a door. You could even crawl out a window and shimmy down a drainpipe like when you snuck out of your room in your younger years. Damn, that’s old school!

When you get out and encounter the world, you never know what you might find – be it a stranger’s smile or a lady in the men’s room.