Without clear direction and an avenue open to me to do something about it, my angers over the fake sociological society subsided. I let it go. I moved on. The University of Missouri, Columbia recently cut the PHD program in Sociology that offered the mock society weekend lab I took as a freshman. It took 47 years but at least it happened. I did not think anything more about Identity Theft or the girl who was about my age who lived in the next state and occasionally got tangled up in my bank accounts until 20 years later.
I was a representative for the United States Chamber of Commerce, Washington DC. It was the year 2000. We had all globally escaped Y2K but people were still skittish. So I was quite busy. My j o b for USCC included visiting USCC members and legislators all over my district. As I opened each new market for USCC for the first time the first thing I did was stop by the police station the new town and introduce myself. I told them I was in town making calls on businesses. I produced my UHCC identification and they checked me out. The second thing I did was stop by the local chamber office and introduce myself to the local chamber executive.
One day I stepped in the door of the local chamber and introduced myself as the National Chamber Representative for the town. The Chamber Executive said to come sit in his office for a minute. He would be right back. Well….he took a bit of time and acted a little strange. I started thinking maybe he was upset at the national chamber. I contacted human resources on my cell phone as I sat there in case there was an incident on record with this local chamber I did not know about. The USCC representative in DC said there were no incidents reported. No one had ever been to this town for USCC before. I was instructed to see what happened when the local chamber executive came back and call them when I left his office. I was also glad I had let the local police know I was in town.
The local chamber executive finally came back into his office and sat down at his desk. He apologized for his long absence. Then he told me a very strange story. He said he could not believe his eyes when I walked into his chamber. Then when I shook his hand and showed my badge and it showed my name he said he almost gasped. He had put me in his office while he went to get his secretary to call the elementary school in the town. It seems the kindergarten teacher there in that town looked exactly like me and had the same name.
He could not believe his own eyes. He drove to the school and went to the kindergarten room to see if the kindergarten teacher he knew was in the classroom. She was in fact in the classroom. My exact double was indeed teaching the class that very minute I was seated in his office under the watchful eye of his secretary. She was to make sure I did not escape somehow and go to the kindergarten room. The secretary assured him I had not left his office. The chamber executive had a young son in the kindergarten being taught by my double hence his intensity and the strange behavior. He said we were definitely identical.
But, that is not what had him acting so strangely. There was more.
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