Evil! Pure and Simple from the 8th Dimension!

I may have mentioned before that my sister and I look alike. Same height, same build, same curly hair – hers is auburn, mine blonde. She has brown eyes, mine are blue. But sure, if you see us together it’s clear we’re sisters.

Since when did that become so unusual as to be newsworthy?

We’re used to getting that “Are you twins?” question from waitresses, the occasional salesperson, some dude at Best Buy who’s helping us find the right cables to set up the laptop to the television. But this . . . This was too much.

Friday we meet after work, leave her car at her workplace, and go to dinner. Nothing unusual there. It’s easier than both of us driving home, getting into one car, and driving all the way back to where we were to have dinner.

It was after dinner, things got nuts.

We both wanted to pick up some new sweaters, I’m in the market for a new bedspread, and we needed a bottle of wine for Saturday dinner with Mom. So we cross the street to the mall, head into JC Penneys, and make our way through to the escalator so I can glance at bedding. As we pass this woman helping a man compare jewelry boxes, she suddenly looks up, mid-sentence with this man, and points at me and declares “Sisters!”

That poor man looked bewildered. My sister hadn’t heard her, and I just rolled my eyes and kept going.

We get up to the houseware section, and I’m glancing at bedding – finding nothing I like – then wander through the furniture department (we’re in the market for two chairs and a table). As we pass a couch that a couple is seriously contemplating, the saleswoman helping them looks at us as we pass and says, out loud “Oh, look at the sisters! You two could be twins!”

My sister smiled, I shook my head and we kept going.

Making our way out of the furniture department, we head back down, making straight for World Market to get wine. Now, in our mall you have to pass through half the mall, then walk through the Barnes & Noble to get to World Market, since there’s no mall entrance for that store. I paused in Barnes & Noble to try and find some books by friends of mine that have recently been released (couldn’t find a single one) but did hear one woman telling her friend “Look at those two sisters! How about that?”

We left, went to World Market. Bought wine, had a nice conversation with the wine lady who, thankfully, didn’t think remarking about our family ties was appropriate.

But the cashier sure thought it was wild ! “Sisters!” she declared as if we were unaware. “You’re twins, aren’t you?” “No,” was my reply. Then she got upset, like we were being rude in denying it.

We get out of World Market, make our way back toward Penneys – hearing “Sisters!” and seeing pointed fingers twice more along the way.

Back in the store, where we find some tops, we endure two more clerks declaring out loud, with pride and astonishment, that we’re sisters. Followed by the inevitable “Twins?”

Okay. I get it. We look alike. Not really, but I can see how people think that.

What I don’t get – what I will NEVER understand, is this need people have to declare it loudly and proudly, like they’ve just seen proof of fairies. My GOD, people! Sisters exist. Yes, sisters really do exist. Grown women, related to each other, often do go shopping together. They can be found having coffee together, looking for clothes together, even – on occasion – having dinner together in public !

Shocking, I know. It’s even a little terrifying. But let’s try and remember, if we can, that sisters are just people. Just regular people, like you and me.

Even sisters put their pants on one leg at a time.

So the next time you see two women together, walking down the street or browsing in the shoe department, see if you can refrain from drawing attention to them. And maybe, just maybe, if you’re polite, quiet and discrete, they’ll leave a quarter under your pillow.