So, my daughter Madeline gets particularly excited when we encounter other people wearing the same names that we do. When we were living in Bangkok, it was she who had a name-twin (who still is the only other Madeline she's gone to school with). Here in Saigon, there seems to be a plethora of Lauras, though, so it is I who get tangled in the occasional identity crisis.
This week, I was emailing with another woman about registering for a beginner/intermediate photography class, and at one point, I received a reply that basically said, "Hey, are you Laura X?"
Well, no, I wasn't - the pair of surnames that I answer to were clearly highlighted in each of our previous emails, too. But this is not the only time that I've had someone ask me if I was Laura X. The funny thing is that Laura X is my neighbour, and we have many things in common - we are citizens of the same country, have kids the same age and born in the same places, and she even used to have the same home address. And my last name is even similar to hers.
Last week, a few of the parents that I know at Madeline's school came over to me one afternoon when I was waiting for dismissal and asked me to tell them all about Tasers, which I thought was one of the more bizarre questions that I've ever been asked. I wasn't sure what it was about me that marked me as someone who could give an impromptu lecture on electroshock weapons, you know?
It turns out that I was being mistaken for another local Laura, one who has a surname close to the one that am known by at the school, and she was heavily involved with a thread on a web forum here about bag-snatching thieves who are starting to wield Tasers.
I'm feeling sort of extra-popular here in Saigon, what with my name-doppelgangers ...
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