Personal

 by Brendon J. Wilson

A Case of Mistaken Identity

It’s a funny way that the mind works. Today on the bus, trying to take my thoughts off the mind-numbing annoyance that is transit in the Lower Mainland, my brain farted up the memory of an email I received just after New Year’s 2000. The letter was from a kid in Egypt, and the subject was a case of mistaken identity.

The letter went something like this:

Dear Mr. Brendan,

I’m not making this a formal letter, cuz you’re a cool actor. I love the way you act, and I only watched one movie of yours, which is Encino Man. I loved it! My name is Ramy Mohamed Al-Reedy. I’m a 13 year old boy, living in Kuwait, but i’m egyptian. I study at the Gulf English School.

Looking forward to your reply,
Ramy

It was cute, but sort of sad. Obviously Ramy had found me by entering “Brendon” (misspelling the actor’s name) and “Fraser” (part of the name of my university, Simon Fraser University) into a search engine. Presto! He found my web site. At the time I received the message, I was still in Anguilla, a tiny island with few people and fewer things to keep me entertained while working on HushMail. It was a moment of entertainment, for sure, but also a little sad.

With heavy heart, I responded to Ramy to explain what had happened. No Virginia, there is no Santa Clause. No Ramy, I am not Brendan Fraser.

In some ways I wish I could have brought myself to lie, to propagate a child’s belief that they can reach out to anyone and that the Internet removes all barriers to communication. So if Brendan Fraser or his agent is out there, drop me a line. I still have Ramy’s email address, and I’m sure he’d be more than glad to hear from you, even after all this time.

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 by Brendon J. Wilson

Three Little Pigs

This evening I was down in the recycling area of our building, doing my Sunday duty of taking out the recycling. It’s a tedious job, but hey, it fits well with my obsessive-compulsive need to sort and organize stuff. That, and it’s always interesting to see what people throw away. There’s the usual magazines (I could save a bundle on magazine subscriptions if I were sufficiently motivated), shredded financial statements (think of the things I could do with a scanner and a good piece of software), and The Three Little Pigs. Huh?

WTF? There in the middle of the usual discarded junkmail and pizza boxes is a pristine copy of The Three Little Pigs, the kind that is targeted for bedtime reading to three year olds. Alongside it, a similar copy of Jack and the Beanstalk. Am I mad? Hell yeah.

First, I’m a big book fan. When I was a kid, I grew to love books through my overly-literate parents’ numerous Sunday visits to the library. One weekend in fifth grade I read a dozen Hardy Boys. Twelve. It’s safe to say, I like books.

Second, I hate to think that some kid somewhere has nothing, and here’s someone who has so much that they have to throw away perfectly useful items just to make room for more crap. My mother had the curious habit of forcing me to keep my Dr. Seuss books and Lego on the presumption that trees and plastic wouldn’t exist by the time I had kids. I don’t know whether that was an overly pessimistic statement on humanity, or simply a subtle hint that she didn’t expect me to have a child until I was 60. Either way, it was probably a smart plan; after all, have you seen the price of Dr. Seuss books?

Finally, I really like the library but cuts are forcing them to become shadows of what they used to be. Any time I’ve got a book I’m done with, I usually try to donate it to the library (same with my magazines). The clerks at the library always looked shocked that someone is donating books. I like that look.

I picked up the books, and took them back up to my apartment. After all, I’ll be going to the library sometime soon. And it’ll make me feel a little better about the whole thing.

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