You know for years I thought Don Quixote was The Man of The Monster.

Not La Mancha?

I heard it wrong the first time and it just stuck.

So when he tilted at windmills, did he also try to eat them?

Well, after that I just assumed that when I did hear it right, as La Mancha, that I was hearing it wrong.

Wait, huh?

Every time I heard La Mancha I assumed I was hearing The Monster wrong, and kept correcting it.

Like a bad word stuck in autocorrect.

Nerd. But yes.

So what made you realize the truth?

Saw the play. Hard to get it wrong when you see the marquee.

Fair enough.

But the thing is, sometimes I wonder what else I have wrong, or that any of us do.

Well I’m sure we’re all wrong about a lot of things.

Of course we are, but I mean what have we misheard, decided we simply must be right and refuse corrections on without knowing it.

Huh. No way to tell, really.

Nope! Not unless you go through everything with everyone else and find out where the holes are.

Interesting.

So I could tell you about a play I saw and you heard it as Phantom of the Opera and maybe think it’s some Off-Off-Broadway thing about a talk show hosts revenge.

Which would be funnier than the real thing.

Yeah, but still, you get convinced it exists and talk about to people as if it does, but since you also assume it’s a tiny play that came and went, no one can disprove it.

And so who’s to say it doesn’t exist.

And who’s to say it does. How many little quirky things we tell each other stories about just aren’t real at all?

And does it matter?

Of course it does.

Why? It’s real to the teller, and then becomes real to you, and since the basis isn’t around, the fiction becomes, basically, real.

So reality…

Isn’t.

All because of Don Quixote.

Could it be more fitting?

Not really!