I guess you could say that I have one of those faces. You know, the ones that have pretty generic, WASPy features. Dark hair, light skin, blue eyes. I could pass for any number of Scottish, Irish, English or even German people. I’m always being told I look like somebody’s wife, daughter, sister, girlfriend. My best friend and I even look enough alike for people to ask if we’re sisters.
In fact, I work with a woman who has the same hair color, skin tone, and eye color as I do. And occasionally we wind up with about the same hair length. Hilarity ensues.
I’ve never been mistaken for this woman. Ever. No one has come up to me, or yelled at me from a distance, and called me by her name. However, she has recounted more than one instance of this to me. Last night was the funniest one yet.
She went into the ice cream store in my neighborhood. Ordered the same thing I always order. The owner knows our family. Has for years. When my coworker asked about birthday cakes, the owner asked whose birthday it was. Coworker said that the baby was about to turn one… Owner responds with “Baby? What baby? Nobody told me you’d had a baby!” Coworker decided that was the strangest conversation ever, but didn’t really know what to say.
This morning, as she came into work and passed my office, she realized what had probably happened. She told me the story, which I thought was quite funny. I’m not sure she was quite as amused as I was, but she got a kick out of it. And tonight I’ll stop by the ice cream shop and tease the owner about that. My kiddo hangs out at her shop all the time, which is why she would have been confused at no one telling her I’d had a baby. Because I haven’t, obviously (for those of you that know me). And the kiddo would have most definitely mentioned a new sibling.
Ah, the joys of having “one of those” faces.
