I saw a shooting star and I made a wish. The shooting star turned out to be a plummeting 747, trailing burning jet fuel before it plunged into a residential neighborhood two towns over, a town previously known for having an astonishing number of quality Thai restaurants for such a little hick town. Town With No Library Mecca For Lovers Of Thai Cuisine. Question: Was my wish invalidated? I made it in good faith, I'm not asking for more than what I have coming to me. This is just one example of the problem of things turning out to be other things entirely. Things, people, situations. The innocent misidentification of things, people, and situations often leads to such problems as oopsy daisy incest and tragic death and delightful farce and poisonings and social embarrassment and spitting on the wrong twin again. I saw a friend of mine across a vast parking lot and without consciously deciding to wave I witnessed my hand simply shoot up in a wild gesture of greeting that resembled a spasm, accompanied by something like a hoot or yelp, an inarticulate and somewhat strangulated semi-holler you might remember Rae Dawn Chong emitting in the movie Quest for Fire just before the mammoth charged, and of course it turned out not to be my friend at all, a complete stranger is who it was, and then it occurred to me that the friend I was thinking of was in fact not alive and is still not alive, and frankly "friend" is pushing it a little, "acquaintance" is probably a better word. My arm and my mouth thought my deceased acquaintance had materialized in the parking lot of Bi-Mart but they were both very wrong.