I was going through a haunted woods one Halloween. They put my friends and I in a group of about eight people, total. One was a middle aged, sort of paunchy guy with his daughter. It was one of the lamer haunted attractions I’ve been to.
At one point, we were standing in front of this graveyard, and the fakest-looking teenage Dracula I’ve ever seen rises up from the grave. I snicker a bit, and middle aged guy, who is right behind me asks, “Are you scared?” “No, not really.” He leans closer. “Are you sure?”
I’m turn around, ready to tell him to stop breathing in my ear, and his face is rotted off and his hair crawling with snakes. Of course, it was not middle-aged guy, but one of the workers who had snuck in behind me while I was watching acne-ridden Dracula. I screamed, and probably lost about 5 years off my life.
Also, from the kitteh kingdom: Last summer, I had a friend over who swore up and down that cats hate her. As soon as she sat down on the couch, my very friendly cat Watson jumped up in her lap. I should mention that a) I very rarely have friends over and b) this girl looks remarkably similar to me. Same build, same haircolor, etc. Watson is purring and rubbing all over her until I say something and he looks up at me. I have never in my life seen a cat make the “What the holy hell?” expression. He got right off of her lap and for the rest of the night, sat on the couch next to her, staring at her in wide-eyed suspicion.
I was standing at a soda machine at work when suddenly someone was squeezing a butt cheek then reached around and started to rub my package.
I took a side step then turned and looked at a very cute strawberry blonde gal. Her face turned beet read and she squeeked out “Your not my husband”. She turned and disappeared around a corner.
This happened a couple of years ago: A friend of mine was shopping at the mall one evening and she happened to see a certain older boy who went to our same high school, who shall be known as V. Now, we both think V is just about the hottest thing ever, but my friend is a little more outgoing than me and so enthusiastically waves at him across a large open space in the mall to catch his eye. He sees her, and kind of waves back.
The next day, she tells me this before we head to first period. Skip ahead to fifth period, where V and I are in the same class. We get split up into groups and, to my great joy, I am in a group with V. He then mentions how he had seen me wave to him at the mall yesterday. I awkwardly tell him that he saw my friend, but this explanation may not have succeeding since I was never so good at thinking around V. I’m pretty sure he thought I was just joking for some reason and it really was me at the mall.
Beautiful boy, but not really too blessed in the brains or observation department. For the record, my friend is several inches taller than me and has straight black hair, while I have curly brown hair.
Oh, and once for Halloween I and a different friend (who looks slightly similar to me…though only slightly…unless more people than I care to consider identify us both by large breasts…) ended up getting the same traditional witch costume. We were allowed to wear costumes to class and ended up confusing tons of people who knew us and saw us every day. It’s really weird. In high school, strangers tended to think we were sisters or even twins. I had some baffling conversations with teachers, even, until we both realized the mistaken identity.
Coincidentally, my story also takes place in a Northeast Ohio shopping setting. My dad was walking from his car to a grocery store in suburban Cleveland when a guy came up to him and started asking “What are you doing around here instead of Chicago?” Dad (who has been to the Windy City several times but never lived outside of Cuyahoga County) was puzzled until the guy asked: “So how are the Bears going to do this year, Mike?” Dad then had to say “I’m not Mike Ditka, and don’t know why you thought I was”, to which the other shopper replied: “Hey, don’t be offended – he’s a good-looking guy!”
It wasn’t the first time Dad had been mistaken for someone else, however. Although I never witnessed any such encounters, he tells me he was often confused for Avery Schreiber during that comedian’s heyday. I think those misidentifications were more understandable than was the Ditka incident.
A friend of mine at Purdue (whom we shall call Andy) was a bit of a jokester. Upon seeing my roomate across the courtyard, he crept behind some tall bushes and waited for her to approach. When she was mere inches away, he jumped out waving his arms wildly and jumping up and down, hollering
“BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!”
That poor girl nearly passed out. It was NOT my roomate, but apparently someone who doesn’t like to be suprised by crazy people jumping into their path and screaming at twilight.
I was in highschool, but we were visiting Lincol Nebraska to watch the NCAA mens gymnastics championships. It was after the meet and we were watching all the gymnasts mingle as they started to tear down the equipment when my mom is certain that she spots one of my highschool teamates on the floor. She gets really excited and starts yelling and pointing, “I’ts him! It’s him!” I immediately realize that it is not him, but I’m pretty sure I know the face so I desparately tried to get my mom to calm down, but she just got louder and more insistent, clearly trying to get his attention. Of course it worked and he looked right up at my crazy mom pointing “It’s him! It’s him!” I’m certain that he thought he was who my mom thought she was because I finally figured out my mom was making a scene for Tim Daggett.
Now I know nobodt here knows who Tim Daggett is, but for a highschool male gymnast in the eighteis, he was big time. He was an olympic gymnast in 1984 and if it hadn’t been for a massive ankle injury he would have been there in Seoul. At the time, I would have done anything to melt into the stands.
My SIL and I were trading NYC jokes at a mall. As we walked towards the down escaltor, I said “There’s always the one about the tourist who walks up to a native and says 'Are you going to tell me the way to the Empire State Building or should I just go fuck myself?” I get on the escalator and I hear my SIL say “Or should I what?” and I turn around and say “Or should I just go fuck myself?” and realize I’ve just said that to a middle aged woman I’ve never seen before in my life who is standing between me & SIL.
I turn around, cover my mouth so I won’t crack up laughing, and snort. My SIL says “Oh, shit.” I get off the escaltor and step to the side, the woman gets off and just walks in a straight line. My SIL gets off, our eyes meet each other, and we laugh so hard we have to sit down.
I was ten, and visiting my sister in Sacramento in the 70’s. We went down to the wharf in San Francisco, where the hippies had rugs and tables spread out everywhere, sort of a huge yard sale, mostly consisting of crafty, organic stuff. I stopped to gaze longingly at some jewelry, and unbeknownst to me, my mom and sister moved on. I remember talking to “Mom” about the stuff and whether she’d buy such and such for me…then realizing I was alone…with the hippies. Needless to say, my mom nearly had a stroke when she realized she had lost her daughter, and started backtracking frantically. I was this close to being raised in a commune and named Sunshine.
High school physics class. We were doing optics experiments, with prisms, in the dark with just one bright lightbulb per experiment table. I’m doing the exercise and calculations in the gloom, when our table’s lamp suddenly goes off, then back on, then starts shaking a bit so that the prism’s diffraction changes and throws my calculations to hell.
I’m convinced it’s my buddy sitting at the next table over who’s trying to be funny, so without even looking up I irritatedly say : “Will you kindly stop fucking with our lamp, jerkwad ?”. Then I look up and see the startled face of the lab assistant, who was quietly moving from table to table, had bumped the lamp out of its plug by accident and was helpfuly trying to put it back where it was.
I was thrown out of the class by the teach, I just couldn’t stop laughing.
Our office idiot was planning on being operated on for hemmeroids by a Dr. White. Our Big Boss also knew a Dr. White.
I’m back in the BB’s office when the phone rings.
BB: Hello.
Caller: Is (total idiot) there?
BB: No he isn’t. Can I help you with anything.
Caller: Tell him to call Dr. White’s office.
BB: Is that Dr. White the veteranian?
When BB ended the call, he was astonished to see me sitting there with my lips clamped and my whole body shaking. When I finally told him which Dr. White it was, he said "Go back to your desk. You are not going to be able to work now.
I saw what I thought was a little old,physically handicapped lady making her slow painful way up the road.
How I laughed when it turned out to be an undercover cop who arrested me for attempting to mug “her”,me and the lads doing a ten stretch often laugh about it even now after all of these years.
Been behaving myself so hope to be out in another three.
Back last January, I was playing in a big Magic tournament in LA. Among the people I knew there were a pair of identical twins who had just moved to the area, and who I had met about a week before. I can tell them apart, now, but I couldn’t at all, then. Between rounds, I spotted one of them and wandered over to talk about how I was doing. I was going through the last round when he interrupted me: “I think you’re looking for my brother.”
I was taken aback. I didn’t think I had called him the wrong name, or done anything wrong, but he was pretty cold. They had both been very friendly before, so I turned around, confused…
And saw them walking toward me. I did what I can only assume was a humorous double-take.
There is or was a lady in Toronto who was almost identical to my counselor. Same build, same hair, same everything. I saw her on the subway, in stores, on the street. But I knew it wasn’t my counselor because she didn’t recognize me. Other people saw her. Clients saw her. My counselor’s husband saw her. For years. But my counselor never, ever saw her.
Ah, this reminds me of my “evil twin turned triplet.” I went to a very large university, and around my sophomore year, I was informed by various friends that I had a lookalike on campus. Not only did we look very similar in build, face, and hair, she also rode a bike, wore a bike helmet, and had a jean jacket in fall/spring. I only figured out it really wasn’t me after comparing dates/times/places of sightings and knowing I was definitely not at that place.
My senior year, my sister started attending the same university. And her friends started reporting the same thing to her. My sister and I insist that we just look like sisters, but we’d had many people tell us before that we looked like twins. Now there was the “evil triplet” to sow extra confusion. Her boyfriend was even miffed at her about not saying hi and coming over to talk to him when he was yelling across the street, until she explained to him how it couldn’t have been her at that place. I don’t think she or I ever saw the doppleganger, though considering how strongly we both denied that we looked like twins to each other, it’s possible we saw her frequently and never noticed a resemblance.
A different instance, also from college: My boyfriend and I were good friends with two guys who were friends and shared an apartment. Let’s call them Jeff and Ted. We hung out with them a lot. At one point we came over to their apartment with Jeff, and waited for Ted to get back from class so we could all go out. Jeff goes into another room from the entry/living room. As my boyfriend and I are standing in the apartment, him closest to the door, we embrace and kiss. During the kiss, the apartment door opens, and we hear a very confused and shocked “Hey?!!” from behind us. We turn and see a bewildered Ted, who then shows a look of realization. Both Jeff and I had jean jackets and (at the time) short hair in the same color. Ted walked in the door to see what he thought were his roommate and another friend (both otherwise known to be hetero, and both in committed relationships with girlfriends) making out. :smack:
It’s not just when you’re three! When I was five, my mother took me shopping in a larger town, about 40 miles from our home. At some point, I looked up and realized that I had been following the wrong navy blue ass around the store! :eek: (This was around 1974, during that time when all women were issued navy blue pantsuits as they collected their babies from the hospital. I have to assume that lots of little kids experienced the same trauma of mistaken rear-end identification, due to the glut of gluteuses covered in blue polyester at the time.)
Like others have mentioned, I also seem to have a twin or triplet wandering around the immediate area. Nothing weirder has happened than being waved at by random strangers, but it’s still kind of funny.
I almost, ALMOST, grabbed my FIL’s butt, thinking he was my husband. It is uncanny how much they resemble each other from behind, even including their posture.
I got pretty close before I realized – the shock was quite severe, let me tell you, although nothing as traumatic as it would have been if I had gone through with the grab ass. Now I have a strict identification policy for touching if we are around the in-laws. Face-to-face plus verbal confirmation is preferred.
About fifteen years ago one of the Russian chemists at my company taught me several interesting phrases that one doesn’t normally use in polite company.
One afternoon I was walking out the front doors and I saw him outside with his back turned to the door, having a smoke. As I passed behind him, I whispered one of those Russian phrases.
He immediately whirled around with a wild-eyed glare and said “That doesn’t mean ‘have a nice day’ you know!” while wagging his finger.
I laughed and never thought much of it for a decade and a half. Soon after that incident I transferred to a different part of the company.
A few months ago I saw that same chemist, looking a bit older, walking down the hall with another guy and I thought to myself… “Wow, I never noticed that that guy’s brother worked here too.” They looked like identical twins, though one was a bit more stooped than the other.
Then I realized: fifteen years ago I accidentally told the guy’s twin brother, a total stranger to me, to go f*** his mother :eek:. It’s a wonder he didn’t slug me.