Mistakenment

After I pay for my food, the female clerk comes back and waits at the window.

“Sir, may I ask you while you called me a bitch yesterday?”

This is me, flabbergasted.

This is me, trying to come up with a “No” that doesn’t sound false.

This is me, blurting out an answer.

“Uh, I didn’t stop by here yesterday dear,” I said to the pudgy twenty-something with glasses.

“You were here yesterday and the day before, with a woman.”

“Well, uh, I come here only during the weekdays and my wife has never been here with me, so that wasn’t me.”

She looks at me as if I’m lying. I try to give her the half-smile hey-look-we’re-all-friends-here gaze. It isn’t working. She hands me my burger and fries.

“You were here with your coupons?” She says, as if I’m going to suddenly own up to my deviant behavior which I never actually performed.

“No honey,” I say, “this the first time I’ve been here since Friday.”

She looks at me, still, as if I’m lying to her.

“I’ve never called anyone that at a drive-thru window,” I say. “I’m sorry?”

Why the hell am I apologizing? I have no idea. I just hope, because she thought she recognized me as some prick, that there isn’t any Spit Sauce(tm) in my burger.

I get this problem all the time. There are certain people who look like people you know. And I’m not talking about celebrity impersonators or look-alikes. I mean just your average joe kinda guy who looks sorta like Joe From Two Houses Down.

“Hey! Hey man!” You say when you see Joe.

Except he turns and it isn’t Joe. But it’s so close…

Yeah, I’m one of those guys. This happens more often than I ever imagined. If you know a balding overweight guy I probably look like him, depending on how the light strikes my big head or how unshaven my beard is that day.

With all of your power
What would you do?