Twins, revisited

This past weekend, a cab driver in New Orleans took a picture of me and my twin sister Joy with his phone because he said he’s never had twins in his cab before.

“You probably have and just don’t know it,” we said.

But he insisted that we were the first. And he’d been driving a cab for ten years.

He even made Joy move her hair a bit off her face so that we had the same hairstyle for the photo, to make us look as twin-like as possible.

I had almost forgotten what it was like to be I.D.’d by strangers for being a twin, since it’s now been a year since I moved back home to New Orleans from South Carolina without Joy.

Sure, I remember the more extreme stories of strangers noticing us (which I wrote about here...and here), but I forgot what it’s like have people in checkout lines and cashiers and CAB DRIVERS notice that we’re twins and ask questions.

I forgot how everyone smiles when they hear that our names both start with the letter J.
That one I don’t understand.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS HAVE THE SAME STARTING LETTER ALL THE TIME PEOPLE!! WHAT'S SO FUNNY??

(At least our names don't rhyme.)

But it was actually more fun than I remember.

It was fun showing Joy off to my new co-workers (NONE of which fell for her pretending she was me....ugh)

And it was fun laughing when the hippy, tattooed cashier at a wine bar asked us if we were twins, not because we look alike, but because “ya'll have the same air about you.”

In addition to the impromptu cab photo shoot, we were called out as twins by TWO lead singers in two different bands. (holla!!! Front row is the best row)

We also wore each other’s clothes, slept in the same bed and laughed at things that no one else found funny, which makes other people super uncomfortable.

And we get to do it all over again next weekend!!

I’m flying up to South Carolina in five days (which made our goodbyes this morning not sad...whew) and we’re going to an AWESOME Halloween party near the beach.

Our costumes? Dolly 1 and Dolly 2 cloned sheep.

I’m sure many cab drivers would love to take pictures of that.

-Jenny