Mistaken Identity

Yesterday afternoon when I picked up Ben from preschool a woman came up to me in the parking lot. "Hey there!" she said. "I was just answering your email!" I didn't recognize her but I smiled and said hi, and then continued buckling Rebecca into her car seat. I was trying to figure out who she might be, but I was starting to think she had me confused with someone else. I had sent two preschool-related emails that day, but neither one seemed likely candidates for the email she was referring to. Only one of them was to someone I did not personally know, and both had been replied to hours earlier.

She continued to stand next to my car, peering into it as I got the kids into their seats. "Hmm," she said. "I didn't think I knew you had two."

Now, probably at this point I ought to have confessed to her that I had no idea who she was and that she probably had me confused with someone else. But I was still wondering if maybe I was supposed to know this person. She had clearly seen Ben as she peered into my car, and he had not been a tip-off that I was not who she thought I was. So she had both me and Ben confused with another mother and son? Was that possible? Was it not only possible that there is another mother who picks her kid up wearing ratty jeans and a rattier sweatshirt, without makeup, but one who also has a son who resembles Ben? This seemed rather unlikely to me also, so I continued to nod and smile noncommitally until she finally headed into the school.

I forgot about the incident until this morning, when it suddenly occurred to me that I might run into this woman again, and she might continue to think I was someone else. It would be like that Friends episode where Chandler's coworker keeps calling him Toby and asking who this Chandler guy is (I just happened to see this episode again recently as I was channel surfing). I briefly considered parking on the other side of the lot, modifying my drop-off and pick-up routine, and/or wearing a disguise so I wouldn't be "recognized" by her again. But then I realized that if I did this my life might actually turn into a Friends episode, and so rather than risk that I shall simply correct her if again I run into her and again she mistakes me for someone else.

But hopefully I won't run into her again.