This is me. (Remember: it’s late, people. Any traces of makeup have long since disappeared and I’m in my pajamas watching the Yankee game).
(Happy me ^)
(Annoyed at how my picture is coming out me ^)
(Trying to make my eyes look bigger but coming off as creepy me ^)
(A cross between WTF me and I may be insane me ^)
At least once a month, somebody somewhere insists they know me. This is a sample conversation of how the scenario plays out:
Complete and Total Stranger: Don’t I know you from somewhere?
Me (checking them out): No. Don’t think so.
CaTS: Didn’t you go to Yale/Dr. X’s office/my senior prom?
Me: No. I get that all the time. People always think they know me.
CaTS: No, no. I’m SURE I know you.
Me: Um, but I don’t know you.
CaTS: Are you from Boston/around the corner/Mars? Hey! Didn’t you work at Shoprite/the Pentagon/my dentist’s office?
Me: No, really. You think you know me. I just have a familiar face.
This goes on and on while the person insists they know me from somewhere, they won’t be able to sleep until they figure it out, and can I please recite my entire resume and life history so that they can ease their mind? I’m not sure what it is but many people think I look familiar. It happened again to me today at my son’s karate school. I felt pressured to tell a CaTS my employment history so that he could prove to himself that he wasn’t crazy.
As I grow older and crankier, I’ve been wondering how I can play around with this phenomenon. Maybe I should act like the other person looks familiar to me, too, and ask twenty questions? No, I don’t have an aunt in Savannah, but I do have a great uncle in Poughkeepsie! Have you ever been to Poughkeepsie? No? Umm, what can it be then?
Or maybe it would be fun to answer “yes” to their questions, for example: CaTS: Weren’t you on American Idol? Me: Why YES I WAS! That Ryan Seacrest is a real jerkoff! or CaTS: Weren’t you at the Hoffman wedding? Me: YES! Wasn’t the food terrible!
This could be a way for me to make new friends, hear new stories, break the ice. It would definitely be more entertaining than telling someone a hundred times that they do not, in fact, know me.
That’s it. That’s all I really wanted to put out there tonight.
Have a good night!
Waiting on a Word 