Dop·pel·gäng·er Discount

dop·pel·gäng·er

ˈdäpəlˌɡaNGər/

noun

1. an apparition or double of a living person.

Sometimes...no, often most of the time, certain moments in life can only be understood in reverse. This is just such an occasion.

My wife and I live in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The neighborhood is more like a small village full of Victorian houses and quaint shops. Almost everything you need is within walking distance.

I like to have glass of wine with dinner so once or twice a week I stopped in a local shop called, Solo Vino. The staff was always friendly but I noticed one cashier, a young blond woman was extra attentive and made it a point to always strike up a conversation whenever I stopped in. After about a few weeks of shopping there the cashier started giving me a discount off of my purchases.

I never asked why I was getting the discount. This was a small business and I thought the owners gave their employees the power to offer customers a price break occasionally. It continued on like this for months. If the chipper blond cashier was working I got my 20% discount without fail. As we were interacting she seemed slightly nervous at times as if she was trying a little too hard to make small talk.

I honestly began to think either: 1. there was maybe some remote chance that she was into me; or 2. I was now a member of the cool wine shop “in crowd” and qualified for some elusive frequent customer discount. As it turned out it was neither.

One chilly fall afternoon the winds of fortune shifted. I walked into the wine shop, grabbed my usual $10 bottle of cabernet (I know, last of the big spenders, right?), and sat it down on the cashier’s counter. As I reached for my wallet our eyes met. I could see the cashier’s chest rise as she took in a deep breath and nervously asked, “So the new season’s starting, are you playing anything interesting this year?”

I was perplexed and my face must’ve shown it. I thought to myself, “Is she talking about my iTunes playlist, some adult flag football club that I’ve never heard about?” I could see this was an emotionally intelligent woman, she instantly picked up on my dumbfounded demeanor.

The cashier quickly rebounded with, “Wait, you ARE the lead violinist for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, right?”

If I was a little less honest I might have tried to continued the charade a little while longer just for the fun of it but I came clean.

I smiled and said, “No, I’m sorry I’m not.”

She stood there and stared at me for a long time in disbelief. It seemed as though she was seven years old again and someone told her Santa Claus wasn’t real or there was actually a person inside the Chewbacca suit.

Her cheeks blushed a bit and she said, “Oh my God, the resemblance is uncanny!”

That was it, I knew my doppelganger discount ended right there and then.

Like I said before, Cathedral Hill is a small neighborhood. My doppelganger just happens to live in our neighborhood and I’ve seen him face-to-face. It is uncanny, it’s like looking into a mirror. My wife and I have joked about trying to find an empty violin case at a garage sale to try to reap more doppelganger discounts but I know karma would not take kindly to that. It would be just my luck that someone would ask me to play them a song.

Him, Steven Copes, the lead violinist of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra:

Me, the guy who no longer gets a discount at the wine shop:

Do you have a Doppelganger story? If so, please share it in the comments below.