If you thought having a class full of Jennifers was hell when you were in school, try having a phone book full of, say, Marty Walshs. Now try having one of them end up elected as Boston’s most recent mayor. You see where this is going, right?
Folks as high up as the vice president were calling up mister Walsh to congratulate him on the election victory. Well, that is, they would have been, if they were dialing the right Marty Walsh. Instead, they congratulated a business executive with the exact same name for an election he didn’t even participate in–aside from, one hopes for the sake of his own safety, perhaps voting in said election.
The thing I can understand here is at least the guy the mayor was confused with lives–or, if not, works–in the city. Easy enough to do. So let’s fast forward to Olympic season. The US has taken to joining the digital world, so when the Olympics happened, this meant the folks they wanted playing for them were told by text message. Awesome. Unless your text message intended for, we’ll say, a Ryan Kesler ends up instead going to a 67-year-old from the wrong country who’s never played a game in his life. Apparently, Kesler had changed his number–and, I guess, forgot to fill out a form somewhere along the way, and the old one was reassigned in relatively short order.
So, you know, Canadian Grandpa gets himself an invite to Canada’s game on behalf of the US, and a CEO gets to run a city he didn’t even campaign for. The American dream at work. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go triple check my contact info–just in case, you know, I’m not the only James H hanging out in Ottawa. Or maybe I’ll just default most of my contacts to email…