I Have An Evil Twin

Many years ago, I discovered I have an evil twin.  He lives on the edge of reality so he can occasionally come marauding though my life, break something, and then disappear without a trace — leaving me holding the bag.  However, despite the fact he’s a total asshole, I’ve grown to appreciate his presence and, on occasion, I actually like the guy.  Over the years, he’s dropped me in enough crap to fill the Augean Stables, but without him, I wouldn’t have learned some pretty serious survival skills.

My earliest memory of him is watching a smartass kid (who looked exactly like me) shouting insults in a nose-to-nose disagreement with some very big boys.  The situation deteriorated, my evil twin disappeared and I discovered the humiliating power of the public four-man wedgie!  Lesson learned: the personal simile is not the best strategy when dealing with unreasonable people.

Once, in the heat of the moment and, against the advice of friends and a vast body of empirical evidence, he decided we should have sex with a notorious psycho.  Sometime between round three and daylight, my evil twin wandered off, and I woke up with a crazy woman who thought we’d mated for life.  Three months, 4 letters (no texts in those days) 25 phone calls and 6 stalking visits later, she finally got the message.  Lesson learned: never think with your dick.

As a sophomore in university, he thought it would be great fun if we knocked the pompous off a particularly pompous tenured professor.  The whole semester was witty and precocious and even developed into a bit of a swagger across the English Department.  Unfortunately, just before finals, my evil twin vanished, and I was informed that “although I had considerable talent I had not demonstrated any respect for serious scholarship and my grade, therefore, would be adjusted accordingly”  Lesson learned: pompous and vindictive are pretty much the same thing, and pick your targets ’cause karma’s a bitch.

Every once in a while, my evil twin still shows up, but he has grown older and wiser.  Now, he just eats the last cookie and puts the empty box back in the cupboard, shouts at the wrong people when he’s angry, and tends to forget the importance of family and friends.  So, basically, if I’ve pissed you off in recent history, cut me some slack: it’s probably my evil twin.