"Mistaken Identity"

By Cynde L. Hammond



















MY "TOP 5" POEM

He saw me from afar
Then he yelled, "Hey, wait for me!"
He hoped that when I turned
My sister's face he'd see.

When he had seen my face
He had thought she looked too thin.
He took a second look
And saw I was her twin!

He certainly was shocked,
Had he known my sister well?
Not well enough, it seems-
It upset him, I could tell!

He said, "You're so alike
I'd like to sneak some kisses,
If word EVER got back,
I'd catch 'it' from the Mrs.!"






I did something that was very scary, as far as I was concerned: I entered my very first poetry writing contest! It was a contest at the Helium website and the category was entitled “Mistaken Identity.” Guess what! I WAS IN THE TOP 5! I ranked #5 out of 83! Not bad, huh? My husband was so proud of me, and that made me feel great!


The first thing I thought of when I saw that title was my life-long problem of having people mistake me for Sande, simply because we’re twins. It’s a natural mistake. It still happens, in fact. However, sometimes it is so annoying because people think you’re lying! There are those that don’t know that one or the other of us have a twin; then there are those that think we’re fooling with them; and nine times out of ten, when they don’t believe it, it’s when one of us is in a colossal hurry and we don’t have time to explain, so we’re left with being accused of being terribly rude! It’s so unfair.

Once, I had the clever idea of trying to head one lady off at the pass, but it failed miserably! I recognized “the look,” so I just agreed with everything she said, then to my horror, she burst into tears.

“You’re trying to get rid of me, aren’t you, Sande?” she said, choking back her tears. “Well, it’s fine by me!” Then she stormed off down the street before I could even determine who she might be.

When I moved back home to New York State, after living in Texas and Virginia collectively for a little over ten years, I ran into a friend that I used to work with at the Seneca Army Depot in Romulus, New York.

“Hello, Carlos!” I said, extending my hand to shake his. “How nice to see you. How have you been?”

“Huh, so now you decide you want to talk,” he snarled. “Well, maybe I just don’t have the time for you.” He turned, and then briskly started walking away.

I was totally blindsided. Not quite sure how I should react, I went with my instincts and ran after him. He had been a very good friend to me once, after all, and I felt I owed it to him to at least make an effort to see what had happened to make him act that way.

“Carlos, wait!” I yelled. Thankfully, he stopped and waited for me until I could catch up to him. “What’s going on?” I asked, innocently. “What have I done?”

“I used to think we were friends. Good friends,” he said, the strong emotion clearly audible in his deep voice. “Not any more, though. Not after what you did to me a couple years ago.”

I had been away from home for over ten years, with only one or two short trips home per year, and I knew I hadn’t run in to him, so the picture was beginning to become a little bit clearer.

“When was this?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know!” he answered angrily. “It was two years ago, at the Train Show in Syracuse.”

“Do you happen to remember who I was with?”

“What does it matter?” he asked, annoyed.

“Please, Carlos,” I said. “You’ll understand why in a minute.”

“It was some guy with dark hair and a mustache.” he answered. “And he had a long ponytail.”

I had to laugh. While I felt so terrible that Carlos’ feelings had been hurt, I couldn’t believe that this had happened to me again! I didn’t understand why Sande couldn’t take that extra minute and explain to people that she had a twin that moved out of town, but she didn’t—she just let think that I was rude!

“What’s so darn funny?” he growled.

“I pulled out my wallet, and flipped it open to Sande’s and my senior high school portrait where the two of us were sitting on a special platform, flanking each other, and I was above her. We were dressed in identical navy blue dresses with white leather collars and cuffs. Then I flipped the page to Sande’s wedding photo where she was standing with a guy with dark hair and a mustache, and then once more to a more recent photo of Sande, where she was still with the same guy, but he had added a ponytail.

Carlos was stunned. He grabbed my wallet and looked at each photo closer, then he looked at me and smiled. He returned my wallet and reached for me with both arms and we hugged each other for a long time. “Friends?” he asked.

“You know it!” I replied.







Until next time...stay safe, stay well, and may God bless you all.

Cynde

Please visit my other blogs:
Cynde's Daybook ~and~ Usurper Exposed. Thank you!