I'm Not Trouble. Serious.

On Wednesday morning, I was rushing along the sidewalk on my way from my German class to my Meteorology class. I decided to take a little different route than I had taken on Monday morning and try my hand at jaywalking straight over to my building as opposed to going up to the crosswalk and then backtracking down the sidewalk. I had nearly reached my jaywalk point when a man walking toward me made eye contact with me. His face lit up like a light bulb and he said, “Look, here comes Trouble!”

Now, I knew that I did not know this man, and almost no one, I don’t care who they are, has the nerve to call your average Amish woman “Trouble” without knowing them personally. Using this deductive reasoning, I knew that I was about to meet one of Kris’s former classmates. I smiled at him in a friendly sort of manner and said, “You must know my sister Kris.” He sort of chuckled a little bit and wanted to know how I’d been. I told him I’d been fine and that he must have had a class with Kris. “Yes,” he said, “Algebra.” I asked him what his name was. He chuckled and said it was Bill. He started to say something else and suddenly stopped, looked at me with a deadpan expression on his face and said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the poor guy and told him I was very serious. Up to that very moment He thought that I was pulling his leg when I said I was not Kris but Kris’s sister. I asked for his name again and told him that I’d tell Kris I saw him. I had to get to class and he seemed quite eager to go on his way, or I would have attempted to make a bit more of a conversation out of the whole thing so he wouldn’t feel too bad.

Last semester, Kris had stopped at Java City, the coffee shop at the library, and had gotten a white chocolate mocha something or other. I was on my way to meet her and we talked on the phone as I was leaving my car. She told me how delicious it was and that I needed to stop and get one. I walked up to the counter and ordered the drink. The guy behind the counter said, “Another one?” I explained to him that there are two of us and I hadn’t had one yet. I should have pretended to get all huffy and asked him “So are you calling me a pig or something?” I never think of good comebacks until it’s way too late.

From time to time, I meet people on campus, at Wal-mart, in office supply stores, and various other places that smile at me in a friendlier-than-just-being-polite way, and each time I have to choose how to handle the situation. I know they think I’m Kris, and I know that it will be awkward for both of us if I have to tell them that I am not Kris. Those that throw out a smile and a “how are you” in passing I generally handle with a smile and a “just fine” as we each continue on our way. Then there are the people that want to chit-chat a little that get the “you must know Kris” bit. I used to leave it at that but more recently I’ve started taking names because inevitably Kris wants to know who it was.

Kris is much more visible than I am. She deals with a lot more of the general public in her job; she has taken more classes with the general population at Western; she is in Bowling Green nearly everyday; therefore, I get to be Kris much more often than she gets to be Sharon. So while I’m always tuned into and have clear reception to the “Sharon” frequency, I also have staticy reception to the “Kris” frequency.

I simply judge each situation as it comes along and try to deal with it in the least sticky way possible, but some days, there is no help for it but to jump right into the glue.