I Never Forget A Face-Mistaken Identity at its Finest

Maddee, Max and I pulled into Albertson’s parking lot the other morning. It was early; hardly anyone was there. I pulled in across from a woman and recognized her as a parent from the school. I don’t know her name, but I have seen her on several occasions. I started waving vigorously and she just stared at me. She backed out of the spot and drove slowly past, never taking her eyes off of me, as if I might be a little nuts. My kids confirmed my nuttiness by telling me she was not the woman I thought she was.  I argued with them, but  they assured me that they knew who I was talking about and clearly this lady wasn’t her.

Oh well. It happens, right? You’ve done it, too. You’ve looked over and surely recognized someone only to realize it was not that person at all. And maybe you’ve been the recipient, too.  In fact maybe you were walking across the campus at UMASS one day twenty years when quite suddenly you were ambushed by a flustered,  curly-haired girl who hurled herself at you, threw her arms around you and then buried her head in your chest. Your heart only had a few seconds to thump, thump before the girl realized her error, let out a shriek and then took off running (which was quite a feat for this girl as she had a strict no exercise policy in college).  You were probably quite puzzled by the whole event, but  what you didn’t know was that  the girl had almost been hit by a cyclist on campus, he had yelled a few choice words at her and she was upset, embarrassed even. She looked over and thought you were her good friend Todd, so she flung herself at you, only to find out you were not Todd, which doubled her embarrassment and off she ran.

Don’t feel too terribly for me (yes surprise, surprise, I am the girl in the anecdote above) as I was in good company in my foibles.  It seemed with 25,000 students there were several look-alikes floating around campus. In fact, my friend Matt did it so often that he cleverly referred to it as  "A Case of the I-Think-I-Knows." Okay, maybe it doesn't seem that clever, but I remembered it twenty years later, so don't judge.

And it wasn't just Matt and me who had these issues. When we lived in the dorms some of the guys on our floor developed a call of sorts. I don’t know why, it’s a guy thing I guess. It was somewhat of a honking noise, but not quite, just for simplicity we will call it a honk or the sound. Anyway, my friend Jane and I became obsessed with trying to make the sound, too.  Again, I am not sure what the fuss was about this sound, but remember, we were 18 and 19 our brains weren’t fully developed yet.  It’s important to note that the sound, which again can’t be really put into words, traveled best if you cupped your hands around your mouth. Wouldn’t ya know, one day Jane got it right and moved up the food chain of coolness. She was so proud of herself that every time she saw one of the guys she would signal out to him with the sound. You can see where this is going, but humor me anyway. One day while walking on campus she saw our friend Steve and started calling to him using the sound. He was walking in her direction, but not responding. She cupped her hands around her mouth, as she should, but still no dice. Steve continued to walk closer and closer with Jane honking up a storm. Sadly, she got insanely close to him before she realized it wasn’t Steve. She tried to play it off, by continuing to honk at some imaginary someone behind the guy-who-was-not-Steve.  This may have worked, too, if it wasn’t for what happened a few hours later. Once back in her dorm room Jane decided to open her seventh floor window and get some fresh air. Spring was beginning to make an appearance and Jane was excited. When she looked out her window she saw Steve-the real Steve-approaching the building. She hung out her window, cupped her hands around her mouth and started proudly honking like crazy. Redemption. He looked up in confusion, or perhaps horror, and that’s when Jane realized it wasn’t the real Steve, but once again that poor boy from earlier in the day. A boy, mind you,  that she had never seen before that morning. Ah the vision of Jane stalking this poor boy still cracks me up. He's probably in therapy because of it, but that's beside the point.

Now, now, Janey if you’re reading this, I am getting back to my own embarrassing moments, don’t worry. When I graduated from college I struggled to get a teaching job. I was living back at home with my parents and subbing in the local schools. It was early in the school year and I got a call to sub in my old elementary school. There was an assembly to attend and sitting in those seats in the old auditorium at Lincoln school brought back some memories. I need to pause here because to this day this story still embarrasses and confuses me, but here I go anyway. I trust you won’t judge me, too much, even though it is truly a Jim Ignatowski moment (sans the drugs).

Okay so there I was in Lincoln school filled with memories, when I looked over and saw my best friend from fifth grade, Annmarie Marcellino. She moved right after fifth grade and we stayed in touch for a while, but eventually grew apart, and now here she was all these years later. I was elated. So, after the assembly, I quickly dashed over to her and said “Do you remember me?” and she said, “Of course, you’re Aimee Decker.” And I giddily exclaimed “And you’re Annmarie Marcellino my best friend from fifth grade!!”  This is where it gets ugly, folks, she said “No, I’m Jennifer DeRosa, your good friend from high school.” I stood there confused and honestly couldn’t remember her for a moment. It’s like my brain was firing wrong. I finally recovered, and went into a big, how are you? What are you doing here? And so on. But, it was too late. I found out she was still in college and doing an internship at Lincoln. I saw her a few more times when I subbed, but,  I gotta be honest, the friendship never recovered. I mean the trouble is, we really were good friends in high school, so my mistake was a little unforgivable.

Ah, sadly I could go on and on with cases of mistaken identity, but  I bet you are feeling a little sorry for me at this point. I think it’s best if I end it here. If it’s any consolation to you, the woman Maddee, Max and I saw in the parking lot the other day was who I thought it was. She just didn’t recognize me. Go figure.