Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[snowflake]

I've actually heard that the only definitive test for twins is a genetic test.  I went to college with a pair of identical twins who were six inches apart in height and had very different faces.  One of them was the "big twin" at birth (not uncommon) and the other spent 3 months in the NICU for her size and a later infection and she never caught up.  They looked very different, but one of them had split her forehead open as a toddler and apparently the resulting scar - even though it was not obvious as an adult - made her whole face grow differently.  Everyone assumed that they couldn't be identical.

But they came from a family with a rather serious genetic ailment. When they were teenagers, they were both tested for it and it was discovered that their genes were identical.

Also, fraternal twins can just have the same facial structure and build because of genetics.  My husband looks exactly like his brother who is 3 years younger and they are always mistaken for twins.  I look like my brother who is seven years older and people keep asking if we are identical twins. 

It makes my brain hurt every time I have to explain that a brother and sister cannot be identical twins.

[mmswm]

A friend of mine has a rather rare set of twins, and she gets to the point where she simply hates trying to explain it.  For whatever random reason, her egg split *before* fertilization.  This isn't supposed to happen, but it can, and did in her case.  Then, both of the new eggs were fertilized by different sperm.  The boys are technically fraternal twins, but are closer than most since the egg half of their genetic make up is identical.

[Ms_Cellany]

A friend of mine has a rather rare set of twins, and she gets to the point where she simply hates trying to explain it.  For whatever random reason, her egg split *before* fertilization.  This isn't supposed to happen, but it can, and did in her case.  Then, both of the new eggs were fertilized by different sperm.  The boys are technically fraternal twins, but are closer than most since the egg half of their genetic make up is identical.

Fridentical twins!

[lilfox]

A mini cube moving brain hurt...

There are eight desks in our section of the office.  Three of us were asked to relocate from our current desks to totally different areas within the same large office so that the remaining desks could be given over to people who all work on the same project this year.  Some of those new people were supposed to be coming from other buildings a few miles away.

Since I was swapping to a relatively close desk, we got it done pretty quickly the following week.  Then a week later, I was told I could have my old desk back because TPTB decided instead to move that project team entirely over to one of the other buildings because there wasn't enough room in the 8-cube section after all.

They... couldn't figure out if the project team had more than 8 people in fewer than two weeks?

Also, they are now having to displace a whole new set of people to make room for this team.  Fun times.

[Shalamar]

I once had a brain-hurty conversation at work.  For background, my husband and I used to work for the same company in the same department.  When we married, I hyphenated my last name, so our last names aren't identical, but they're similar enough.  Let's say, for example, that his last name is Higginbottom and mine is Rembrandt-Higginbottom.

We went on vacation, and when we got back, the folks at the coffee break table asked us how it had gone.  My husband said "We did blah blah blah", and I chimed in with "It was really nice, and then we did blah blah blah." 

Cue puzzled expression from a fairly new co-worker.  He had worked for the company for a couple of months by that point, so he knew our names, both first and last.  He asked me "Oh, did you go on the vacation, too?"  It was my turn to be puzzled, and I said "Er ... yes."  One of our other co-workers said "You DID know that these two are married, right?"

Nope.

[Kariachi]

My sister and I have the "you're related?!1?" issue. Nobody outside the family can tell, even if they know us both.

I'm tall, slightly pudgy, with a rounder face and long, thick, wavy, dark hair. I also don't wear make-up and tend toward jeans, sweaters, and scarves. She's short, stick-thin, angular face, and thin, straight, light hair that she keep cut short. She's all but obsessed with her make-up and wears ornate skirt/corset ensembles.

I could understand it, but we're both single, have the same last name, the same parents, refer to each other as our older/younger sister, all that jazz. Even after all that we still get "you're *blank's* sister?".

[Piratelvr1121]

My older two boys look quite similar and until my oldest started middle school, people at the elementary school were mistaking them for twins.  My middle son yesterday was insisting that it's "stupid to think we're twins! We look NOTHING alike! We don't even look like brothers!!"  Ohhh yes they do.  Actually all 3 of the boys look a good deal like each other.  Mind you, they're not identical as there are differences in eye color but they've got the same fair complexion, same dark blonde hair that looks more brown in the winter, same eyebrows, ears, smiles...

Only difference is that Piratebabe has finer hair and it has a hint of red to it. 

My younger brother and I look alike as well...and like our father's side of the family.  Same forehead, same eyebrows, eye shape and color, same smiles and noses and hair color.  (well it was the same shade of brown before I started coloring mine) My mother said it wasn't fair that she carried us for 9 months and we turned out to look like our father.

[mmswm]

Pirate, it drives my boys nuts when people tell them they look alike.  Of course they have certain resemblances, but I don't  think they look anything alike.  My oldest is a brunette with "Shirley Temple" style ringlets, and while he shares some of my features, he looks more like my ex-husband. My middle son has fireball orange hair that is very curly, but more wild and unmanageable than the oldest,  and is a miniature, male version of one of my sisters.  My youngest is has blonde and only barely wavy hair and looks so much like my father that if you compare pictures of my father and ds at the same age, the only way to tell they aren't pictures of the same kid is the difference in print quality/color from the 1940's/50's and now. 

[MrTango]

I've always thought it would be really neat to have nearly identical twins: boy and girl whose only genetic difference was that the boy would be XY and the girl would be XX.

Of course, the probability of that heppening is probably smaller than than winning the Powerball, being struck by lightening, and being hit by a meteorite all on the same day.

[Shalamar]

I had a co-worker once whose son was the absolute spitting image of her husband.  But you couldn't say that to her (she probably got tired of hearing it). I made the mistake once of saying "Oh, doesn't he look like Ross?", whereupon she snapped "NO HE DOESN'T.  HE LOOKS LIKE HIMSELF."   

Mind you, that only lasted until she had a daughter that looked like a miniature version of herself. 

[Thipu1]

Not an exchange with a person but an exchange with a airline.

  We've just returned from a vacation and, for some reason, Jetblue has seen fit to award me a PhD. On our documents, Mr. Thipu was listed as 'Mr'.  I was listed as 'Dr. Thipu'. 

We have no idea how that happened.     

[hermanne]

Our neighbors have boy/girl twins. At first glance you have to wonder if they're even related; she has straight blond hair and he has curly dark brown hair.

[snowflake]

Not an exchange with a person but an exchange with a airline.

  We've just returned from a vacation and, for some reason, Jetblue has seen fit to award me a PhD. On our documents, Mr. Thipu was listed as 'Mr'.  I was listed as 'Dr. Thipu'. 

We have no idea how that happened.     

Have you ever looked yourself up on one of those sites that supposedly mine information?  I did and they had my name and address perfect.  (OK, so I order a whole lot over the internet.) But they have me as five years younger, divorced and with three teenagers.  Um, what?  Is that because I sometimes like reading immature literature?

[Diane AKA Traska]

I had a co-worker once whose son was the absolute spitting image of her husband.  But you couldn't say that to her (she probably got tired of hearing it). I made the mistake once of saying "Oh, doesn't he look like Ross?", whereupon she snapped "NO HE DOESN'T.  HE LOOKS LIKE HIMSELF."   

Mind you, that only lasted until she had a daughter that looked like a miniature version of herself. 

No one "looks like themselves" anymore than orange rhymes with orange. That's just idiotic.

[bansidhe]

A friend of mine has a rather rare set of twins, and she gets to the point where she simply hates trying to explain it.  For whatever random reason, her egg split *before* fertilization.  This isn't supposed to happen, but it can, and did in her case.  Then, both of the new eggs were fertilized by different sperm.  The boys are technically fraternal twins, but are closer than most since the egg half of their genetic make up is identical.

Cool! I'll ask my husband if he covers this in the section on genetics in the biology class he teaches. (He's a DNA analyst who teaches as a second job.)

He does cover several cases in which women have had "false twins": two babies conceived at roughly the same time but each with a different father.