Friday, September 3, 2010

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I'm concerned that when I eventually do encounter my evil twin - and believe me, it's bound to happen some day - he's not going to be nearly evil enough.
   They say everybody in the world has an exact double, and if watching hours of classic Star Trek and the occasional soap opera has taught me anything it's that evil twins abound. My mother insists that I was alone in the womb, but I have a feeling she's been holding out on me. Would you let your favorite child know he was one half of a cliche'd trope? Yeah, I wouldn't either.
   So let's say I'm on a rainy Paris street, or chasing bad guys through a seedy, neon-lit Tokyo alleyway, or on a quest for lost documents in the secret hallways that riddle Washington, DC - you know, situations with the highest odds of encountering your evil twin - and there he is. Me, only with a goatee. Unless I have one at the time, then me without a goatee. And he's cackling evilly, as evil twins do, and going on and on about how he's going to destroy me or take over the world, or both, and then a crack shows in his evil facade. Like his zipper is down. Or his evil goatee starts to peel off his chin because he didn't use enough glue. Maybe he has a lisp that's just comical instead of sinister, something like that. Sure would make it hard to take him seriously.
   I'd listen politely, and if he had a gun I'd certainly do whatever he demanded (within reason), but my heart just wouldn't be in it. And if he had a lisp I'd probably have a hard time not laughing at him. 'It's not you,' I'd have to insist while he tried to explain* his terrible, doomed-to-failure plan talking like a three-year-old.
   I mean, really, if you're stuck with an evil twin wouldn't you want him to be good at it?
   I want my evil twin to be one step away from complete world domination. One step because then I'd be the one to deny him success and we'd end up being the mortal enemies that evil twins should be. With my luck he'd be one step away from sweeping up at a movie theater - an evil movie theater, of course - and if I did anything to keep him from it I'd just be kicking the poor guy when he's down.
   So I'd be kind of nice to him, the way you're nice to relatives you don't really know, and he'd totally misinterpret that as genuine interest. And then he'd try to invite me to lunch, and I'd have to think of a creative excuse as to why that wouldn't work. Like maybe I stopped eating, just gave it up for some reason. Then he'd want my e-mail address or my cell number, and I'd think about giving him the wrong number but I'd get flustered and give him the real one and then I'd have to dodge his calls for weeks while he called 'to chat' or 'see what my bro is up to.' And if I answered the phone he'd just go on and on about how nobody wanted to be his henchman or listen to him explain his evil schemes, and I was the only one who really cared when in actuality I really wouldn't care. Not at all.
   I just don't want to be disappointed.

*Evil twins are obligated to explain their plans to the good twin, it's in the Constitution, I'm pretty sure. Somewhere towards the back.

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