Last night I was watching National Treasure there was my brother Pete acting as FBI sidekick #1. I was reminded that we all have a doppelganger somewhere in the world. The eyebrows were a bit too thick and he stood up straighter but it was almost Pete. Sort of a Hoolywood transformation of Pete, like when Hulk Hogan suddenly became Hollywood Hogan.
In college I found mine, or at least others found me as him. I was traveling to speech tournaments throughout the midwest when, gradually, people started complimenting me. At first it was nice, especially since by then I had decided to coast through the sunset of my scholarship years and simply be happy to be traveling and not care about actually doing well, but soon it became disturbing. People would come up to me and start into the middle of some previously begun conversation. They would make inside jokes that I didn't understand or reference some tournament I had never been to. It wasn't until they started congratulating me for a speech I never gave, in an event that I didn't compete in that I realized what had happened. And also someone asked why I had changed into my casual clothes right before awards (Note: those were my competition clothes.)
His name was Jeff Archibald and he was a much better speaker than I was, dressed better, and was much more popular than I was. He was also about five inches shorter than me. I think he might have been from one of the Kentucky schools or maybe Middle Tennessee State. But he could have been my movie double if he had a step to stand on. Assumming that some movie, of course, called for a better looking, more talented version of me with a slight southern twang in his voice.
I'm also playing with the idea that we all have not one, but several. I think it might be continental. Or racial. I have an Indian friend who looks like a Bollywood version of Dustin Hoffman. I once met a Congalese version of Jason Rennert. My father once made a breakfast appearance as a Singaporean businessman. And I know I've seen others.
We all have one. He might not sound like you or act like you but he looks like you...from a distance...when you squint...in the right light...with different hair...and clothes...and maybe glasses.
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This is so funny for you to write this as Josh and I have identified an IDENTICAL you in the Champaign-Urbana area. We saw him two years ago at the C-U Fireworks, at Walmart, restauraunts and on campus. It's insane. We can't keep from giggling when we see him, because it's so uncanny. Doppleganger indeed.
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