VANCOUVER -- On a sunny afternoon, Kristina Lee spotted something near her home in Coquitlam.

"There was a unicorn on a traffic island and I thought, this is my chance!" Lee told CTV News Vancouver.

Lee donned her trusty Tyrannosaurus Rex costumed and gamboled out into the intersection to join the pink unicorn. She wasn't sure how she'd be received – but video shows the two greeting each other like old friends.

People across Canada have been putting on the ubiquitous puffy plastic dino costumes to make their neighbours laugh during an anxious time, when normal social interactions have been curtailed to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

In Calgary, a group calling itself "Dinopocalypse" paraded in front of a nursing home that had been hit with an outbreak of COVID-19.

In Ontario, a T-rex waddled into a grocery store to bring smiles to cashiers and shoppers.

Lee works as a registered massage therapist and because of physical distancing requirements, she hasn’t been working during the pandemic.

“Everyone has a different thing pressing down on them, and just seeing a whimsical t-rex at the intersection acting like an idiot – it makes people laugh,” she said.

Lee has also worn her costume in a drive-by birthday celebration, but now that's she's headed back to work as B.C. slowly reopens, the costume is going away.

Maybe.

"It's not too far put away, let's just put it that way," Lee said.