Hey, Has Anyone Ever Told You That You Look Like….?

 

                I have learned to appreciate my pleasant but not super-attractive looks, grateful even for not being a bombshell.  I began to see how annoying it would be to have people staring or clawing at you all day, lurking around you as you try to shop or walk or order a drink.   

                So, over the years, I have cherished the occasional comment about my beauty- (three to be exact, and one was my grandmother.)  I always felt like I had basically settled into a pleasant cross between Danny Partridge and Angela Lansbury. 

                       So, over the course of my lifetime, I have been injected with just enough confidence to be ready for a compliment when it comes my way.   

                As my husband and I pulled into O’Connors parking lot, an older woman approached our car tentatively and confused us slightly by asking Jeff a question about some batteries and a fire alarm.   

                She looked at me coyly, pulled another box out of her plastic bag and began peppering Jeff with questions about the expiration date on another smoke detector.  But she seemed to have another agenda.  Then she made her move.  She leaned in, over Jeff and pointed right at me.  “I thought you were that singer”, she confessed with amusement, “ I thought, is she really here?”

                I perked right up. It didn’t matter that this person might have been senile, or even blind

                  When she mentioned the possibility of me being a famous singer, I melted just a little bit.  I turned to face her, as I if I understood how she could have made such a mistake.  It happens all the time, I seemed to say.

                 Famous Singer?  Not Madonna? I was hoping for Katy Perry.  Or Pink? But this woman was in her eighties.  Carly Simon?  Who do I look like?  Joni Mitchell?  It couldn’t be Jewel:  there are limits to my beauty, after all.   

                “Yeah that singer from Scotland on America’s Got Talent, what’s her name?”  My jaw dropped:  “Susan Boyle?”  “Yes!  I came right over to see if it could really be her.”

                I was frozen.    DID SHE JUST ASK ME IF I COULD REALLY BE SUSAN BOYLE?

                I sat stunned in the front seat, as Jeff entertained her with answers, guesses really, about her purchases and whether she should return anything.  I had tuned out by then.     

                   As I got out of the car, I approached my little friend.   Was I looking for a fight? A second opinion?   She looked me over and then apologized, saying that now that I was out of the car, I didn’t really look like her.   Relieved, I hugged her.  Then the truth hit me.  We strolled arm in arm into O’Connor’s, my eighty-three year old admirer with her bagful of expired smoke detectors and me- the one she thought was almost, but not quite, as cute as Susan Boyle.