Growing up in rural Oz through the 80s and 90s, I didn’t know any other Shauna’s. I thought my name was daggy and annoying. I longed to be a Jenny, Tracy or Melissa and be spared the indignity of being nicknamed “Shauny Prawn”.
But thanks to the invention of the internet I now know there’s twenty gazillion fellow Shauna’s, and many Shauna Reid’s too. There is one living in Canada. I know this because I often get her emails.
Because of a missing hyphen or full stop or similar, I hear about Canadian Shauna Reid’s PTA meetings, carpool plans, and practice schedules for the school hockey team. Today was the best one though – her son’s metalwork teacher sent me his report card.
The kid scored a solid B. He aced Hand Tools, Power Tools and Lathe Operations. He got an 87 on his Safety quiz. He also did well on both his Hammer and Welded Log projects.
I wrote back:
Hi there Mr W.,
I think you have the wrong email address as I’m a Shauna Reid in Scotland. Looks like J. is doing well with his metalwork though!
Best wishes,
Shauna
The teacher thought it was all pretty hilarious. I kinda love the life of this other Shauny Prawn.
I reckon there’s a lot of dramatic potential with doppelnamers. You could do a sinister Scandinavian crime drama about identity theft where the two Shauna Reid’s use email to mess up each others lives on the perpetually rainy streets of Copenhagen. Or a Richard Curtis-esque fluff fest about two twentysomething women with great hair and very similar Gmail addresses. Shauna A* writes back to the yoga teacher or school principal or plumber of Shauna B** to say, Hey You Missed A Hyphen! ***
Shauna A and the plumber start writing back and forth, then fall in love, then decide long distance is just too hard… but then the plumber flies over on Christmas Eve, to say he can’t live without her. Meanwhile Shauna B is all, how about fixing my bloody radiator?
* the better looking one
** the “Hollywood neurotic yet hot when she takes her glasses off” one
*** possible film title?