Andy Sauer
A couple of weeks ago, I was leaving Costco and saw this guy approaching me with a big smile. I didn’t recognize him, but he seemed to know me. Just as he was about to give me an enthusiastic hello, maybe even lean in with a hearty bro hug, a shocked realization came over him, and he turned away.
I wasn’t who he thought I was.
I must be a clone or just have the most generic face on the planet, because this kind of thing happens to me all the time.
A while back, I wrote about a lookalike I had in town for whom I was often mistaken. Even the late Lester Smith, the original Suffield Observer, who I knew for 20 years, confused me with my double. Over the years there’s been a noticeable difference in hair loss between my clone and me, so the confusion, at least locally, has been cleared up.
Around the world, it’s another story.
In a tiny restaurant in an obscure town in Spanish Andalusia, a German couple easily in their 80s stared at me relentlessly and, though I didn’t understand a word of it, spoke unceasingly (and a tad on the hostile side) about me. I knew this because they were looking right at me.
“It’s happening again,” I said without moving my lips to my wife.
“What is?”
“Mistaken identity….”
As if to settle the question, the German man got up from the table, walked up to me and extended his face to get a closer at me. I looked at him, nodded my head, grinned and raised my eyebrows to convey an I’m-not-who-you-think-I-am-but-this-happens-all-the-time-so-I-understand message of peace. Without a word, he shuffled back to his table, and given the dismissive tone, I assumed he told his wife I wasn’t the lookalike that owes them three months back rent.
I need to state something for the record: On behalf of my clones, I apologize and regret whatever selfish and inappropriate actions one of our own may have committed. Although we have no stated credo, I do not believe whatever transgression has occurred is consistent with the appropriate behavior of a civilized human being. I hope we can make a fresh start.
My mom lives in a memory care section of a local assisted living facility. I was sitting in the common area, waiting to take her out for a walk when this woman forcefully propelled her walker my way. She was smiling and laughing so hard, she had difficulty expressing herself.
“I can’t believe it!” She reached out, clutched my hand and shook it up and down. “What are you doing here?”
Oh, just waiting.
“It’s so good to see you! I can’t believe it’s you!”
Yet another case of mistaken identity.
I see her every week, greet her warmly and sometimes hold her hand. She’s always laughing. I’m not sure who my lookalike was to her, if he was a good guy or if he’s even still alive, but I always make sure I’m the best version of whomever she thinks I am whenever I’m there.
I have to do right by my clones.