I’ve only known one set of identical twins and they were different enough physically not to food anyone.
My question is have you ever known any set of twins (or triplets, etc) that was identical and physically close enough to be able to pull the old “switcheroo” on someone.
You know one twin pretends to be the other one.
And if so, did they ever?
I imagine even twins that were real close looking, could fool someone if they knew someone for long
I have a set of twins in my extended family, and yes they did it often.
They are both boys, and they look exactly the same, save for a few moles. The weirdest thing is that they both had (at separate times) fishing accidents that left a scar on their left hand between the thumb & forefinger.
While they could never fool their mother, they would mess with their dad and everyone else all of the time. To this day, they play tricks on their wives, however with age they have each started getting defining characteristics in their faces so they have to be at a distance, or low light situation.
But man…The fun we had when we were kids.
My one friend who’s an identical twin said that they did it more when they were little kids.
His brother had his tonsils taken out, and when they went to the doctor for a checkup on the tonsils, he stood in for his brother…making the doctor quite surprised to see tonsils in his tonsillectomy patient!
I went to high school with triplets - two identical and one not. We only knew that one wasn’t identical because they told us. They could have swapped any of them for the others and have fooled me.
Incidentally, I just read in my handbook that they’re going to do not only fingerprints but a palmar vein scan when I go to take my nursing licensure exam. They do it when you get there, when you leave for any breaks and when you return to the exam room. Presumably to stop any twin switcheroos for the testing.
My sisters are identical twins, but they look different enough that I could tell them apart at a glance. Other people might not find it so easy. One of my sisters has a distinctive little point the size of a pencil eraser on one ear, so that’s diagnostic.
I’ve never known them to try to fool anyone, and it wouldn’t work with anyone who knew them more than casually.
Here’s a twin switcheroo story.
When I was growing up the family next door had a pair of identical twin sisters*. They were obviously twins but you could tell them apart.
A guy I went to high school with dated one of the twins and got her pregnant. He broke up with her and then later started dating and ended up marrying the other twin.
I have to figure there are some awkward moments at family get-togethers.
*Weird coincidence time. The family on the other side of us also had a set of twins. And the family on the other side of the neighbours I mentioned above also had a set of twins. There were no twins in our family when we were growing up but my sister has since had a pair of twins. And none of these families are related.
I went to high school with identical twins (boys). After four years of going to classes with them and running in the same group of friends, I think they would have had a bit of trouble fooling me, but anyone who didn’t know them well would have had no chance.
When I was really little I knew a pair of identical twins who were similar enough that their mother has to literally hold them still and look carefully for several seconds before being certain which was which. No-one else could tell. They were a bit too little at the time to manage elaborate switching plans unfortunately.
I have it on good authority that a set of twins in my brother’s year at school frequently sat each other’s maths or english exams (one being good at each subject), but I only met one of them, so can’t say if they were really that similar or just had unobservant and unimaginative teachers.
I knew a pair of twins in grade school - 2nd or 3rd grade, I believe. I also dated one of a pair of twins in high school and into college. Based on that limited experience, I think the switcheroo thing is really easy for young kids to pull off and gets progressively harder as they get older, as Spit suggested. My ex and his brother, for instance, were easy enough to tell apart at that time because they had different personalities that fed into their appearance (esp. hair length) but man, the pictures of them when they were little? Even their own parents aren’t sure which was which in a couple of them.
The grade-schoolers were an interesting data point. They were kept separated by the school (gee, I wonder why … checks thread title) in terms of academics*** so I was in class with one of them constantly and rarely saw her twin. By the end of the school year, they barely even looked similar to me anymore, and my classmates had similar experiences, while all our parents were completely unable to tell them apart in the least.
*** It’s not like they were forbidden from playing together at recess or whatever. Just: always in different classrooms.
The music director at our church has identical twin daughters, now in college, and I can’t tell them apart at all.
Over thirty years ago there were still a couple of little family owned groceries here in town. I shopped at one of them, and before I got to know them I thought that the guy who owned it sure moved around really fast. Turns out he was an identical twin, and the two brothers owned and operated the store. They were late middle aged and still looked absolutely alike. Funny thing was, there was a female clerk who moved really fast too, and it turns out she wasn’t one person but two, another identical pair.
And to top it all off the brother and sister pairs were married to each other!!! Their sense of togetherness was so strong that they all lived in a big duplex house they had built, one couple on one side, one on the other. They ofter traveled to twin events, and once even got invited to Japan, to appear on a television show there about unusual couples.
My mother had identical twin brothers. Family could usually tell them apart, but I remember the story about one twin’s wedding. At the reception, in the receiving line, the groom-twin excused himself and had his best man-twin take his place in the line, accepting congratulations from one and all. They had the typical twin psychic bond - when the daughter of one was hit by a car, the other just, knew, despite living hundreds of miles away.
The mother also had two sets of twins, although the second set didn’t survive. When one of my sisters was in the army, her identical twin stayed for a time with her in the barracks and no one knew. She even pulled duty for the enlisted sister. My sister who’s a twin also gave birth to a set of preemie twin that died.
StG
Never known any to do the switcheroo and I know several sets of identical twins.
A few years ago I used play a lot of golf with identical twins. I could tell them apart by golf swing, but not by sight. Oddly, they were both on my team during a night golf tournament (with glow in the dark golf balls) and I could tell them apart by their voices, but my ears would yield dominance to the eyes when I saw them in daylight. Even when they talked, I couldn’t tell them apart. Unless I couldn’t see them. Weird Huh?
Nowadays, I can tell them apart easily. One of them is a bit more weathered now as he does manual labor in consturctionas a job while the other has a white collar job.
Oh - I forgot one! One of the twins and I were in a vaccine study at Vanderbilt University. Neither of us had previously had a smallpox vaccine, and that was part of this study. We were both vaccinated and both developed the typical blister. At a subsequent visit, the nurses had the vaccinated twin send her unvaccinated identical twin in to see the doctor - “I don’t know what happened, doctor. I woke up and the scab was gone!” You should’ve seen him try and come up with an explanation!
StG
I am a triplet. My sisters and I aren’t identical, but we look enough alike that a lot of people have difficulty telling us apart. We only tried the switcharoo once. Our senior year, I went to my sisters TA class and she went to my dance class. I was able to pull it off, but the dance instructor new instantly that something wasn’t right. We chose those classes specifically because the teachers really liked us and we knew they wouldn’t get too mad if it didn’t work.
My grandmother and her sister were the eldest of four sets of twins. They are identical but the next two sets were boy/girl sets, and the final set died with their mother when she died with them still in utero at about eight months of pregnancy, so it was never known what they were.
My grandmother and aunt lived together during the war while the menfolk were away. One did day shift and the other did night shift, so there was always a mother around for the kids. My father said he couldn’t usually tell which mother was which until he sniffed them, then he knew which was his.
On my grandmother and grandfather’s 50th wedding anniversary, my grandmother got up during the speeches, and asked my grandfather if he remembered their first date. “Of course I do!” he replied, but she said, “Well, I don’t…”
She then explained that the mistress of the house she was a maid in had become sick and so my grandmother wasn’t able to take her day off as planned. So she wrote a note to her sister, who took her place and went on that first date! They never let on for all those years!
They also had the psychic bond. My grandfather came home to my grandmother in tears one day, insisting that she had to go to her sister right NOW. My grandfather was a kind man who knew that my grandmother really did need to go, and they scraped the trainfare up and she went that night. When she arrived several hours later at her sister’s house, she found the entire family upstairs in bed with influenza and her sister also sick with it, collapsed at the bottom of the stairs.
I am a twin myself, but a boy/girl combo. And thank goodness, both my kids came singly. Having been a twin, there is no way I’d want them for myself, no matter how cute.
The two little old lady twins in San Francisco that always dress alike and hang out together could easily pass as each other. I haven’t seen them at Tadich’s for about 10 years.
A girl in the year above me at uni had an identical twin. During the first term, she came to visit, and she was able to stand in for her twin at the pub for most of the evening.
It helped that nobody really knows each other in the first term of university; I don’t think that she could pull it off now, mainly because they sound different.
I played cricket with identical twin brothers. I knew them very well as they were the brothers-in-law of one of my closest friends. One brother liked to bat and the other liked to bowl and sometimes one would bat or bowl twice, pretending to be the other brother.
I used to work with a moron (of the female variety) who had an identical twin sister. She was fired a couple years ago, but legend has it that her sister would sometimes work her shift for her. This was the sort of job that required no skills whatsoever.
The widespread opinion is that she got fired because they got caught, and there was supposedly security cam evidence. Virtually everyone believes this to be true, although to me, it has an urban legendy odor to it.
mmm
I had cousins who were twins, but they were mirror twins - one was left-handed, one was right handed, and therfore weren’t identical. Though it was hard to tell them apart at first, after a few days it was easier to spot the differences.
However, there was a couple of twin girls in my school who were identical (and subsequently grew up to be totally hot) who could’ve done so, and like many twins they were very close as siblings, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they had tried it at least once.
I am now going to look them up online to find pics of them and see if they are still hot.