There has been numerous occasions that I have publicly embarrassed myself due to the misconception that I had seen a familiar face or an old friend. A notable time was when I jumped in front of my friend’s car as a joke when I saw her driving in the school parking lot. I sure did laugh when they screeched to a stop, “Wow Kelsey, that was close but I still love you,” I thought to myself. But two angry old women in the front seat where not thinking the same thing. I thought it was weird that Kelsey’s Volkswagens Bug wasn’t the color I remembered, but oh well, sure did make for a funny story to Kelsey when I actually saw her. I usually walk away from awkward situations like these with a shrug and a few giggles but today I was finally on the other side and I could finally understand why the women in Kelsey’s VW bug weren’t laughing.

I left work late and was craving something that would make me hate myself more than I already do, so I went to McDonalds. I pulled into the drive thru and was not surprised to see a line of more than six cars. It was 12 a.m. on a Wednesday, the freaks come out at night, and we love chicken nuggets. I pulled up to the microphone and I ordered the nugget meal, I had not specified a size but the 20 nuggets appeared on the screen, the McDonalds employee must have been able to tell by the sound of my raspy, dry voice that I was in desperate need of some mechanically separated chicken. The two lanes became a digested when entering the pickup window. There were two college aged girls in the drive through next to me, they paused so that I had the opportunity to go first. I was pleased with my entire McDonalds experience up until that point but suddenly I heard bloody curtailing screams coming from the car behind me. I put my car into park and locked all the doors. I kept searching for where the screams could be coming from. Was it because of my car? I had just moved my car a few feet, was there fire coming out of my exhaust? Is there a bee hive on the top of my car? Is there a dead person coming from my trunk? What could have set off the fear in the car behind me and should I start screaming, too?

I watched the car door of the passenger’s side open of the two young girl’s car. She came out flailing as if Syncs reunion tour was taking place in the parking lot. She kept screaming and grabbing her face as if it was melting. She started making her way to my car and my mind started to panic.

The screams continued but they began to form a name. Julia? I scanned my rearview windows even though I didn’t want to see whatever it was that someone named Julia had to deal with. I finally realized that she was talking to me. The theme song from the X-files began to play in my head. The fear started to pass and the confusion started to sweep over me. Me? Julia? Why are you screaming? She started waving as if after the past two minutes of screaming that I would suddenly become Julia and start waving back. I was disgusted with the fact that someone would react this way to seeing someone who they thought they knew. Do you not realize that you had me at the edge of my seat, ready to call 9-1-1? In one last attempt the young girl said “Julia, is that you?” I gave her the “hell no” face and shook my head as slowly as possible so that she only had to see it once in order to understand that she needed to step away from my car as quickly as possible.

As angry as I was that someone would act so ridiculously due to see someone familiar, I almost, almost, couldn’t blame her. I have done a lot of crazy things too and never realized what is was like to be the one who was being mistaken for someone else. I learned three things in that drive thru that night, one, stay calm if you see someone you may know, two, your funny story may not be as funny to someone else, and three, don’t forget to request sauce with your nuggets or else you will have to eat them dry.