If it walks like a duck…

“Although inspired in part by a true incident, the following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event” – Law and Order

“Ripped from the Headlines” – Law and Order

This is a story that was told to me by a reliable friend. For fear of reprisals from the IRGC he prefers to remain anonymous. To make the narrative easier let’s call my friend Bert.

Bert was a road warrior. As a salesperson he travelled over 100,000 miles a year by car and by plane. This story takes place in the Toronto Airport, Domestic Section.

As Bert was going through security he recognized the man who stood before him as The Right Honourable Irwin Cotler, The Minister of Justice for Canada. After the two of them collected their belongings, Bert stopped the Minister and introduced himself. He used the pretext that his mother-in-law was a distant cousin to make the introduction.

After a few minutes of a genealogical discussion, Bert halted the conversation and told the Minister of Justice that he had something serious to discuss with him. At this point it is important to note that Bert lived in Thornhill and Cotler hailed from Montreal. Bert continued to relay the following story……

Bert had recently had a root canal. The dental office was in an office building on the corner of Clark Avenue and Yonge Street. This building was situated at the edge of the huge Vaughan Jewish community bordering on the growing Persian community which was taking root along Yonge Street. The office building was eight stories tall and it had satellite dishes on its roof.

After Bert’s root canal surgery was complete and still under the effects of anti-anxiety meds plus nitrous oxide (Bert is more fearful of dentists than of the IRGC), he took a wrong turn out of the dental office and walked down the hall where he came upon the office of Iran Air. Iran Air services 72 routes in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It has no routes in Canada, United States or anywhere else in North America.

“’Curiouser and curioser’ cried Alice

Bert found his way out of the building and lodged this information into the recesses of his mind….until that fateful day when he bumped into The Right Honourable Irwin Cotler, who was known to be a strong supporter of Israel and was a representative of Jews in the diaspora. Bert relayed what he witnessed and explained it carefully to The Minister because the minister was not from Toronto. He told him about the office and the satellite dishes and mentioned that Iran Air did not have landing rights in Canada.

A few weeks later when Bert returned for a follow up visit to the dental office, he discovered that the satellite dishes were no longer on the roof of the office building and after carefully creeping down the hall, looking from left to right, head on a swivel, discovered that the office of Iran Air had mysteriously disappeared.

Not being a person who believes in coincidences, the story as relayed to me by my friend Bert has many coincidences.

An office building situated at the edge of the burgeoning Persian community has satellite dishes on its roof. The same office building houses the office of Iran Air.
The satellite dishes disappear after a brief conversation with the Minister of Justice.
The office of Iran Air is closed. CSIS and the RCMP announce many years later that they have foiled multiple assassination attempts on The Right Honourable Irwin Cotler.

But most important, God had given Bert an anxious personality with an unrealistic fear of dentists causing him to take a wrong turn.