Tom Auerbach, 29, New York City
"We were throwing a house party for my girlfriend Tina graduating dental school. It was a small thing, but it got loud, and we've gotten noise complaints before, so when someone knocked on the door after midnight, everyone froze up. Finally I go to open the door, and standing there with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth is Bill freaking Murray. I guess he'd heard our party from the street? In any case, people just about lost their minds. Everyone wants a photo chugging a beer with Peter Venkman. Only once everyone had a few pictures with him, he kept going around the room asking if anyone else wanted a picture. Like, over and over. And when the party was clearing out, he's still crouched by the iPod dock, managing this endless Billy Joel playlist he had going. Finally it's just me, Tina, and Bill Murray, and she manages to really sweetly tell him that we're going to bed. You know what he said? 'Oh.' That's it. Just, 'Oh.' And on his way out we can both tell he's got a beer stuffed into every pocket on him. Honestly, it was weird."
Nina Patil, 35, Worcester, MA
"Bill Murray showed up at our honeymoon suite with a half-drunk jug of Carlo Rossi sangria. Don't ask me how he ended up on the eighth floor of the Worcester Marriott, because I just don't know. It's late, like 2:00 in the morning, and all we want to do is sleep, but we weren't about to not invite him in. I think we thought this had been arranged, somehow? Right away, Todd launched into this heartfelt spiel about how Groundhog Day got him through his depression; Bill's nodding, but the whole time he's staring over his shoulder at the couch. Finally Todd paused, and Bill jumped right in: 'Hey, does that fold out?' Turns out, it did. In the morning he was gone, leaving only a quarter-jug of sangria, a mound of mostly-sealed airline nut packages, and his phone number, 'TO TALK ABOUT WHATEVER.' And that's how we spent our honeymoon with Bill Murray."
Chelsea Klezmer, 33, Suffolk, VA
"On Sundays I like to get breakfast by myself at this outdoor café on Beckwith that makes a knockout lox crepe. I'll sip a cappuccino and read a novel, it's nice. Last week, I'm deep into The Corrections when I hear someone clear his throat across from me. I would never in a million years have expected to lower my book and see Bill Murray sitting across from me, but there he was, looking kind of haggard. I'm speechless. Meanwhile, he's reached over and started tucking into my crepe with some plastic silverware out of his pocket. I'm not about to tell Bill Murray he can't eat my breakfast, but, you know, I'd rather he didn't. In about a minute and a half he's scarfed down the whole thing, talking the entire time with his mouth full of smoked salmon about some car he was gonna fix up. Finally he lets out a big belch, leans in and says, 'No one will ever believe you.' And without thinking, I hear myself say, 'I don't know, man, at this point I kind of think everyone will.' But he's already started jogging down the sidewalk, so I don't know if he heard me."
Abbott Cressman, 40, Palo Alto, CA
I was getting some work done from home when a Skype call popped up from an account I didn't recognize. Curious, I answered. Staring back at me was a shirtless Bill Murray. It was hard to tell with the video quality, but from his eyes it looked like he'd been crying. 'Hey,' he said, 'What's up.' I started stammering. I didn't know what to say! 'Please,' he said, but when I couldn't get a word out, he hung up. Not a minute later, my brother Bailey yelled from the next room. Guess who'd called him, begging to hear a human voice? It wasn't until our father, Chip, texted us that none other than a tearful Bill Murray had Skyped him out of the blue that we realized he was going alphabetically."
Monica Asch, 22, Minneapolis, MN
"Nobody riding a city bus is happy to be there, so nobody tries to strike up conversation. You just keep your head down and get where you're going. So everyone on that rush hour 51 was pretty thrown when someone in the front up and yells, 'Hey, is that Bill Murray?' Not only because someone had broken the grim transit silence, but also because it was clearly Bill Murray who had yelled it. He kept going: 'Wow, yeah! That is Bill Murray! I'd love to talk to him!' – and then he changed voices – 'Me too! What a guy! Lucky us! Let's lend him body warmth!' Then he's slogging his way up the aisle, grabbing people's hands out of their lap to shake them and posing for his own selfies in front of very tired Guatemalan women. When he gets to me, I'm doing everything I can not to look him in the eye, but he just reaches down and yanks out my earbuds. 'It's me!' he shouts, 'Bill Murray! Everybody likes Bill Murray! That's why he has so many meaningful relationships!' I scrambled off at the next stop, three miles from my apartment, and got mugged on the walk home. Fucking Bill Murray."
Frank Bunt, 25, Short Hills, NJ
"I spent 18 hours handcuffed to Bill Murray after he jumped me on a jogging path. He tackled me to the ground, snapped the cuff around my wrist, and just stared me down with these dead eyes as he said, 'Now we're buddies.' He dragged me through the woods, following some trail only he could see, to this dilapidated old toolshed. The whole time, all I could think is, 'Would he respond if I called him Steve Zissou?' Inside were piles of cans, a beat-up naphtha stove, and the dirtiest sleeping bag I've ever seen. We played this arcane game of pretend with the cans (his 'other buddies') that he narrated non-stop; it took me an hour of him calling me 'Sofia' to realize we were recreating the shoot of Lost In Translation. He finally tired himself out long after sundown, at which point I managed to grab a pair of rusty pliers and work myself free. Honestly, though, he was pretty chill."
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