Doppelganger!
I know that I have always had a doppelganger. At least for the last six years, there has been some spectre lurking out of sight, mimicking my idiosyncrasies and miming crude approximations of my being. Only tonight, however, did I realize that there is more than just one phantom shadowing my life.
I suspect that I am being tracked by a conspiracy of doppelgangers and I fear that they are organized.
In high school, I knew of a fellow named Dave. I only knew of him. Everyone I knew seemed to know Dave.
And yet, I never met him.
When I first heard of Dave, I was sitting at a lunch table with seven Mexicans and an gangly Irish-American gangsta named Adam. I was calmly explaining to the Mexicans how postive European imperialism was for their people when Adam suddenly said, "Holy shit homes, you remind me of Dave."
Who the fuck is Dave?, I wondered...
I decided to give voice to my ponderings.
I asked aloud, "Who the fuck is Dave?"
"He's this guy who always makes weird noises and says weird shit."
"I MAKE WEIRD NOISES AND SAY WEIRD SHIT TOO!" I was flabbergasted. You can tell because I said it in capital letters. It is sometimes difficult to speak when holding down the shift key, but I must have managed somehow.
"Pendejo", said Alejandro Alejandro. That was really his name and sometimes I called him Alex Alex. He always called me Pendejo. I don't know Spanish, but I feel certain it was a term of affection.
A few days later, I was eating pineapple rings out of a large can when Adam asked, "You know who loves pineapple?"
"Who?"
Adam smiled at me. "Dave does. The motherfucker is wild about that shit. He carries fucking cans of it in his pockets all the time."
"No shit? I CARRY PINEAPPLE IN MY POCKETS TOO!"
(I don't anymore, but I used to carry pineapple everywhere. I carried more than just the little containers with the pull-rings. These were huge family-sized cans and I kept a manual can opener in my backpack to open them. I don't eat pineapple too much anymore. The juice is too acidic and it started to burn a hole in my stomach. (I really do enjoy parenthetical asides. I pretend that I don't, but really I do.))
This Dave character haunted me for two more years. I suspected at first that Adam was playing a prank on me, but people who didn't even know Adam started mentioning Dave too. Jessie said that Dave had brown hair and brown eyes. Eric claimed that Dave liked to pick fights with people for fun. Jordan said that Dave wore the same kind of hat that I did, but that it looked better on me. (Of course it did. I looked awesome in that hat.)
It was getting Weird.
This was either the most complete farce I had ever heard of, or this Dave character had stolen ever aspect of my carefully crafted personality. Anyway, Dave is no longer an issue. I abandoned all of the people who knew him. He could have them, they weren't that interesting anyway. He could have his fucking pineapple too, acidic juice and all.
Hell, he could even keep the hat.
I moved on.
What I didn't realize though, was that when you shake one doppelganger, a new doppelganger springs into his place as quickly as Doppelganger Command (DC) can arrange a contract.
Apparently my new doppelganger thinks that he can steal my interests and become me. And apparently this fucking doppelganging bastard is trying to steal my fucking identity. And even more apparently, I either have to travel Moscow, Idaho and murder him, or become someone altogether different.
The bastard is on to me. He's inside my head. He's sucking my brain like a Jolly Rancher...
I need to become someone else. A new identity, harder to duplicate. Maybe I will hate pizza and instead enjoy a high fiber diet and perhaps I will give up on harmonicas and adopt the kazoo as my instrument of choice.
My alter-ego is operating independently in some God-forsaken hamlet of Idaho.
Idaho!!
Why the hell not someplace better and less like itself? Why not someplace even slightly interesting? Why is my alter-ego so...lack luster? Who is he really? Is doppelganger a career aspiration?
Why is he such a disappointment to me?
I need to place myself in the Doppelganger Protection Program (DPP) and assume a new identity.
I need to HIDE.
When Doppelganger Command catches up with me, (and those dirty bastards will catch up with me)...
When the DC finds me next, I just hope they have better recruits.
My present doppelganger is clearly a second-stringer.
01/01/06 Addendum: my doppelganger is a girl. I have a female doppelganger. My paradigm has been motherfucking shifted.
I suspect that I am being tracked by a conspiracy of doppelgangers and I fear that they are organized.
In high school, I knew of a fellow named Dave. I only knew of him. Everyone I knew seemed to know Dave.
And yet, I never met him.
When I first heard of Dave, I was sitting at a lunch table with seven Mexicans and an gangly Irish-American gangsta named Adam. I was calmly explaining to the Mexicans how postive European imperialism was for their people when Adam suddenly said, "Holy shit homes, you remind me of Dave."
Who the fuck is Dave?, I wondered...
I decided to give voice to my ponderings.
I asked aloud, "Who the fuck is Dave?"
"He's this guy who always makes weird noises and says weird shit."
"I MAKE WEIRD NOISES AND SAY WEIRD SHIT TOO!" I was flabbergasted. You can tell because I said it in capital letters. It is sometimes difficult to speak when holding down the shift key, but I must have managed somehow.
"Pendejo", said Alejandro Alejandro. That was really his name and sometimes I called him Alex Alex. He always called me Pendejo. I don't know Spanish, but I feel certain it was a term of affection.
A few days later, I was eating pineapple rings out of a large can when Adam asked, "You know who loves pineapple?"
"Who?"
Adam smiled at me. "Dave does. The motherfucker is wild about that shit. He carries fucking cans of it in his pockets all the time."
"No shit? I CARRY PINEAPPLE IN MY POCKETS TOO!"
(I don't anymore, but I used to carry pineapple everywhere. I carried more than just the little containers with the pull-rings. These were huge family-sized cans and I kept a manual can opener in my backpack to open them. I don't eat pineapple too much anymore. The juice is too acidic and it started to burn a hole in my stomach. (I really do enjoy parenthetical asides. I pretend that I don't, but really I do.))
This Dave character haunted me for two more years. I suspected at first that Adam was playing a prank on me, but people who didn't even know Adam started mentioning Dave too. Jessie said that Dave had brown hair and brown eyes. Eric claimed that Dave liked to pick fights with people for fun. Jordan said that Dave wore the same kind of hat that I did, but that it looked better on me. (Of course it did. I looked awesome in that hat.)
It was getting Weird.
This was either the most complete farce I had ever heard of, or this Dave character had stolen ever aspect of my carefully crafted personality. Anyway, Dave is no longer an issue. I abandoned all of the people who knew him. He could have them, they weren't that interesting anyway. He could have his fucking pineapple too, acidic juice and all.
Hell, he could even keep the hat.
I moved on.
What I didn't realize though, was that when you shake one doppelganger, a new doppelganger springs into his place as quickly as Doppelganger Command (DC) can arrange a contract.
Apparently my new doppelganger thinks that he can steal my interests and become me. And apparently this fucking doppelganging bastard is trying to steal my fucking identity. And even more apparently, I either have to travel Moscow, Idaho and murder him, or become someone altogether different.
The bastard is on to me. He's inside my head. He's sucking my brain like a Jolly Rancher...
I need to become someone else. A new identity, harder to duplicate. Maybe I will hate pizza and instead enjoy a high fiber diet and perhaps I will give up on harmonicas and adopt the kazoo as my instrument of choice.
My alter-ego is operating independently in some God-forsaken hamlet of Idaho.
Idaho!!
Why the hell not someplace better and less like itself? Why not someplace even slightly interesting? Why is my alter-ego so...lack luster? Who is he really? Is doppelganger a career aspiration?
Why is he such a disappointment to me?
I need to place myself in the Doppelganger Protection Program (DPP) and assume a new identity.
I need to HIDE.
When Doppelganger Command catches up with me, (and those dirty bastards will catch up with me)...
When the DC finds me next, I just hope they have better recruits.
My present doppelganger is clearly a second-stringer.
01/01/06 Addendum: my doppelganger is a girl. I have a female doppelganger. My paradigm has been motherfucking shifted.
posted by jw at
12:10 PM
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