Hijinks and the like

I've always liked kissing strangers.

There's something thrilling about spontaneous passion. Meeting someone, striking up a conversation (not compulsory) and kissing for awhile before hopefully never seeing each other ever again. Or, at the very least, never speaking of it.

For me, the moment that best summed up this idea was with a guy who was, I guess, an acquaintance. He was the cousin of a guy I went to school with and we used to see each other about quite a bit. It was usually at uni, gigs or the pub, and it was always in a group with mutual friends.

One night, I was on my way home after a night out. As I passed by the pub that stood between the bus stop and my house* I ran into the aforementioned acquaintance. He was with one other friend who was too drunk to really participate in the conversation. We said a few words to each other, I don't remember any of them, and somehow found ourselves kissing. Afterwards, he walked me the rest of the way home, we kissed again and then parted ways. We never spoke of it again, and I was always quietly pleased with the way our friendship remained completely unchanged for it, the way we didn't even need to talk about it to know better than to make anything of it.

Of course, when I found out that he had an identical twin it did put something of a question mark on the whole event.

There were an absurd amount of multiple births in Newcastle. I honestly don't know what it was, maybe it was something to do with the coal. Or the steel-works, back when it was still running. I guess all that sheer manliness in the air started making the men's sperm super powerful, impregnating women with twins or even triplets every time they so much as held hands with them. It seemed like every year when school went back, we would see a headline in the local paper reading "Three sets of identical twins in same class!". I personally knew two sets of triplets.

Actually, the one time in my life that I ever babysat was for one of those triplet sets and their older sister. I'm fairly sure the only reason I agreed to it was because I read a lot of the Babysitter's Club when I was a kid and I thought that 'sitting' for triplets could only possibly result in wacky adventures, possibly even the solving of a mystery. Imagine my disappointment when we just played hide and seek for a few hours. I never did like children.

Of course, the sheer volume of identical twins meant that zany sitcom-esque misunderstandings were pretty commonplace. I remember when the band I was in played an all ages gig where it turned out the drummer of the support act was our guitarist's identical twin. Or when I was working at a league's club and a new girl started. A new girl who happened to be the identical twin of a girl who'd been working there a good few months. Naturally, she was placed in the same section, required to wear the same uniform and not issued a name tag for at least three or four shifts. Or the pimply, choir-singing twins at my high school who had the misfortune of having a last name that sounded a bit too similar to the word 'poo' to avoid hilarity, hilarity that was only increased when it was revealed that one of the twins was gay, but the other straight.


Sometimes I wonder whether my entire childhood was just a complex series of practical jokes.



-Smackie Onassis



*There are a ridiculous amount of pubs in my hometown, even by Australian standards. If you walked two blocks from my place you would hit at least one or two pubs in all but one direction.



P.S. Heat one of my band name poll is closed, with both Goddamn the Rhythm! and The Sentient Entities going through to the next round. Personally, I'm hoping to put Parsley Disaster through as a wild card, because come on you guys.

My "Twin"

Have you ever met someone who everyone honestly thought was your twin? I'm going to guess that you haven't, because this isn't something that happens to normal people. But there was a girl I used to know with whom I had a very personally conflicting relationship.

We had met at a drama camp and thought nothing of it. We were both short, with darkish curly hair and the same first name, but that wasn't an uncommon description. We were friendly enough to each other, exchanged phone numbers, and went away thinking we were never going to see each other again.

However. I went to the snow with my family that year and, as I was sidling over to my skiing lesson, I saw a familiar face. Well, ok, it wasn't her face I noticed first. It was that girl, only... something was weird. We were both wearing the same pink ski jacket, the same black pants. We both had blue beanies and were both currently growing our hair long. At first I was like, 'Hey, coincidence!', but then things started to get very confusing for everyone. I was placed in the same ski class as her and her father, and so the three of us automatically banded together. Naturally, everyone assumed she and I were sisters at the very least. Most people assumed we were twins who had never outgrown the novelty of dressing alike. It then got more confusing when everyone else in the class struggled to learn our names. This is how the conversation usually went:

Man: So, what was your name again?

Me: Sarah*

Man: Oh, ok. I thought the other one was named Sarah.

Me: She is.

Man: Oh. Wait, so you guys aren't sisters?

Me: No, just friends.

Man: Oh, so you came down here together?

Me: Um, no. We just sort of ran into each other.

Man: Wearing the exact same outfit? Thousands of kilometres away from where you live?

Me: Yes.

At the end of the week, we again exchanged numbers, promising to catch up again. And we did end up texting each other fairly regularly. The messages that followed made up the most politely passive-aggressive assertion of identity I have ever been a part of.

See, it turned out we also had the same nickname. It's not a name I use anymore (there comes a time in a person's life when you are just too old to get away with a nickname that ends in a Z), but at the time it was MY name. Not anyone else's name, my name. My identity, even. Unfortunately, she felt the same way. It was never something we were going to outright bring up with each other - we were far too polite for any of that. What ensued was a series of text messages, where she would address me by our real name, and sign off with the nickname. In response, I would address HER by our real name, reply to what she'd said, and then sign off with the nickname. This continued for entirely too long.

Neither of us ended up coming out ahead. I think we realised that the whole thing was entirely too absurd and ceased all contact.

-Smackie Onassis

*OH NO REAL NAMES