Thursday, August 21, 2008

When Pound Cake called yesterday evening to explain, in rather gleeful and triumphant terms, how she had discovered my doppelganger at her new place of employ, I immediately began collecting information. I’ve always maintained that, were I to meet my clone, I would probably strangle him at a moment’s notice, so it wasn’t individuality but homicide at stake here. The facts were plainly laid out: they met at a corporate diversity function, where he began expounding on a pivot table training session he had hosted, which I imagine was conducted with wild gesticulations of his Asian arms. Similar laugh, she recounted, and similar dry sense of humor.

Well, my humor may be dry at times, but it can also be moist. And delicious. I cancelled my pivot table tutorial. More importantly, my arms have essentially fossilized into the classic keyboard-mouse posture, rendering any limbic motion above the horizon physiologically impossible. Additionally I’ve forsaken my culture, imagining in its stead a Russo-Irish-Canadian heritage with a wee bit o’ Nigerian, rich with historical anecdotes free of slaving over giant walls, or eating things the FDA wouldn’t even pretend to ignore, or escaping the clutches of Communism to establish a small, polluted free-market island.

That pretty much answers whether I’d even show up at a diversity club. The verdict, then? Not a doppelganger. Certainly some parallels, though, and it makes you wonder what you would do if you met your mirror image, or what he or she is doing right now. In fact, even as we commune, he may be publishing his thoughts online. Typing away. In a blog. Possibly topshelfrants.com or–perhaps!– firsthandrants.com. But you know better than to buy new.