Around ~2008 I was in a Barcelona hostel and met a guy there. He started speaking and I interrupted him excitedly…“Oh you’re American!!”.
He looked down…the weight of pain curdled the air around us. You could sense deep sorrow welling beneath the surface of this man. He paused for what felt like an eternity to compose himself,
He looked up with a piercing, but harrowing, stare and said “No, I’m Canadian…”
I’ll never forget that moment. That sheer depth of emotion is something I haven’t experienced before or since.
Did I silently murder this poor Canadian soul? How do Canadians cope with the mistaken identity?
I think that everyone can make jokes about the mass shooting events, as long as it’s not about any one specific event, and at least until you guys stop having about 12 per week.
You guys are actually doing pretty good this year, only 12 in the past 15 days!
And only 54 kids killed by guns this year so far, that’s only like 1 every 8 hours.
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/