Afternoon Coffee With E.T.

As the eerie realization slowly began to sink in, I sat there not quite sure how to react. I felt an ever so slight shudder pulse clear through my body, but belayed any evidence of this to the person sitting directly across from me.

While visiting a neighborhood coffee shop and kids play area a few days ago, Mrs. LIAYF and I met a very nice local mother with her 2 1/2 year old twins (a boy and a girl). As Lukas and the twins played together we chatted amiably with this otherwise normal mother. And as we made small talk: "Where do you work?" "Do you come here often?" "Where do you live?" that sort of thing, it became oddly clear to me exactly who this woman was.

Mrs. LIAYF and I used to walk a lot all around our neighborhood before Lukas was born (we take shorter walks with our son now). And, about 8 blocks south of us on our street, we would often see a couple who, from a distance, looked a lot like us, lived in a house very similar to ours, drove cars much like to ours, and who at some point were obviously expecting a family addition (something we had been waiting a very long time for ourselves).

We secretly dubbed them our Evil Twins.

So, when this woman described to us where her home was in retrospect to ours, all doubt was cast aside. This woman was Mrs. LIAYF's Evil Twin! And, you know what? She had a really terrific attitude despite being an evil twin. Her kids were sweet and well behaved too. Hard to believe! At one point I even felt terrible for her, because her husband, my very own Evil Twin, was currently overseas bravely serving our country in Afghanistan.

As far as evil twin types go, these seemed to be top notch folks. Frankly, we couldn't have hoped for better. I guess we're lucky that way. At the time I seriously debated it, but in the end I decided against telling this sweet woman named 'Mandy' she was Mrs. LIAYF's Evil Twin.

She was so nice, we thought it best if she remained blissfully ignorant.