My friend and I look Nothing A like
A case of false mistaken identity
A skater at the back of a bar started talking to me amongst the neon lights as if we’ve met before. I knew he didn’t know me because he was notorious in the scene and I would have remembered this type of chance encounter.
How did he know who I was? Was he dehydrated from a day of bombing hills and refueling with Bud Light?
Half way through a confusing conversation I realized he did know me. Rather, he knew the person he thought he was talking to, which was my friend Jane. She was a few feet away ordering our drinks. She did know him and also knew he didn’t know me. She walked over and he asked if we were sisters.
A surprising question since we look nothing alike. Our skin, hair, and eye color are all the same but thrown together in varying ways. I guess we both have freckles but the similarities end there. Sometimes we’ll show up wearing the same outfit unplanned but truly no one has confused us before.
Except that one bouncer who looked at me with a sharp eye.
“Didn’t I just let you in here?” he said with a poignant tone as though he finally caught someone in a micro scale fake ID scheme. “No, I just got here. I’m meeting my friend” I protested gesturing at my overcoat and backpack and pointed to Jane sitting at a table inside waiting for me. He glanced behind him and turned back with a sheepish grin. “You’re good,” he said, waving me in. Too much gossip and good news flooded out as soon as I sat down so his momentary bewilderment didn’t even get shuffled into the conversation.
But now this silly case of mistaken identity resurfaced and I refused to let it pass by a second time, turned it over and over again in my hand until it became a firm point of entertainment whenever we would go out.
Yes, hi, hello, we’re twins. (An especially ironic fact if you knew Jane actually had a twin brother who she did - in fact - look like. Made funnier if seen next to me because I look nothing like him, my supposed twin’s twin. A major plot flaw in our reproduction of The Parent Trap.)
Jane and/or Blaze; unable to tell the difference “from the face up” I’d say to any onlooker that glanced our way, as not to risk offending her by comparing my adequate physic to her aphroditian figure. She’d roll her eyes and claim I was being ridiculous, when she really meant to say annoying.
Then another man I’ve never met came up to me at a different bar to say goodbye. I stared blankly back at his unfamiliar face that was awaiting my regretful adieu just to read sadness cross his eyes at my lack of remorse.
“Goodnight?” I said through furrowed eyebrows and a raised voice.
This man who just moments ago got Jane’s number after chatting her up now moved into the night thinking she’d forgotten him within the span of a bathroom break. She came back to the table and asked where he’d gone.
“Who?”
“That cute guy I gave my number to! I thought he was going to hangout for a bit.”
“Oh, he said he had to go.”
“Why did he tell you? Was he in a hurry or something?”
“No,” I said smiling back, “he thought he told you.”
“God damn it” she mumbled under her breath.
A new victim had fallen into our unlaid trap set by their own inabilities to tell us apart.
My constant declaration and her continual rebuttal of the absolute fact that we, two people who look vaguely a like, look exactly a like, is proven correct again by the perfect drunk candidate it could only work on. A triumph for the absurd.
One night I stayed home and she went out.
An old friend of my roommate’s is bartending at a dimly lit local spot on a crowded Saturday. He sees Jane and asks her how the restaurant is. The restaurant that I work at.
They’ve only met once, twice, or five times before through our large web of second degree friends, yet he feels the need to ask her about my job. Strange.
Unless, of course, he thinks he’s talking to me, which he does.
She’s so stunned that he thinks I’m (she’s) being rude by my (her) lack of response. She stammers out something about how she doesn’t work there and leaves quickly after.
Begrudgingly she tells me the next day. I laugh. He still gave her a free drink, but perhaps out of embarrassment rather than friendship.
It’s a funny bit, I’m glad it’s catching on.
Maybe next week we’ll switch personalities and really put it to the test.
Shit We’re Loving: Watch
Blaze’s Pick: Be Kind, Rewind
From the bizarre French mind of Michel Gondry, the same guy who brought you Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I present a lighter but still strange indie cult classic, Be Kind, Rewind. This 2008 comedy is the video store counter part to Jack Black’s movie career launcher and fellow indie drama High Fidelity. It features two best friends (Jack Black and Mos Def) trying their best to survive on the outer, outer skirts of New York in a town threatened gentrification.
The city is trying to demolish Danny Glover’s beloved neighborhood video store but things go from worse to awful when a magnetized (yes you read that correctly) Jack Black accidentally deletes all the videos at the exact moment when they need money the most.
Mos Def has the brilliant idea to remake each film requested by a renter one at a time featuring himself and Jack Black as every part.
The movie has some interesting points about the changes of city scapes, the lies we tell ourselves in order to have a little faith, and the power of cinema.
The meta idea of making hundreds of movies within a movie seems absurd, but that was the zany vibe of y2k that the youth are so enthralled by today. It’s the jeans under the mid length dress and belt bigger than your waist fashion movie equivalent.
Like most media reprised from that time, there are a lot of inappropriate racial undertones that the movie could have definitely done without; such as the sexualization of Driving Miss Daisy, a lot of tone-deaf comments from Jack Black’s character as a white person living in a historically black neighborhood, and his use of blackface.
If you like stories that try to have a lot of heart and slightly miss the mark but that’s the reason why they stay with us, then you might really enjoy this.
It’s not a show stopper, it’s not the funniest thing in the world, but it’s sufficiently quirky, historically interesting, and gives you something to chew on.
Show Your Support: StrongMinds
OTF Editor’s Note: We selected this charity to spotlight quite early in 2022 and obviously had no idea where the world, country, and our own minds would be come August. As a topic we’ve talked about frequently throughout our history and the past few months, it is only fitting that our Spotlight Organization for August is about mental health.
StrongMinds is a social enterprise founded in 2013 that provides life-changing mental health services to impoverished African women. Since many African women cannot even begin to tackle issues like poverty and economic development until they overcome depression, StrongMinds provides treatment for women who suffer from this pervasive and debilitating mental illness. By providing group talk therapy delivered by community health workers, StrongMinds is the only organization scaling a cost-effective solution to the depression epidemic in Africa.
StrongMinds has now treated over 140,000 women with depression to date in Uganda and Zambia. On average, 80% of the women we treat remain depression-free six months after the conclusion of therapy. When our clients become depression-free, are able to work more and their kids eat and attend school more regularly. They also report that they no longer feel isolated, and that they have people to turn to for social support. In the typical OTF fashion, we have already donated $50 and encourage you to give whatever you can, even if it’s just a follow.
Daily Intention:
Today I choose… to make this a good week.
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