Maybe the stupids who ask if we’re identical aren’t so stupid after all?

Although Tino and I were born exactly one minute apart, we have never had that special connection that is so common among twins. As children, we weren’t hungry at the same time, we weren’t simultaneously sleepy, we had our own separate and distinct groups of friends, we never had a secret language nor did we have a sixth sense about each other. Except for that one time we engaged in a little twin telepathy from our cribs and decided it would be a good idea to whip off our diapers during nap time and decorate ourselves and our immediate surroundings with our freshly homemade feces although if you hear our mother babble on incessantly about it, she would have you believe that had it not been for *my* instigation and prodding, Tino would have napped soundly and our nursery would not have smelled like a herd of incontinent cows for months and she would not have needed therapy until Christmas.

But whatever.

We also have never looked alike. Well, except for maybe five minutes back when we were embryos.

And maybe for a short while during our formative years when we shared the same inherited physical deformity known as ARE YOU AWARE YOU HAVE A THIRD ELBOW GROWING OUT THE MIDDLE OF YOUR FACE?

But then Tino eventually grew taller and I eventually grew boobs and we each had a plastic surgeon go Michael Jackson all over our faces by cutting, sawing and scraping enough bone from our noses to sculpt a reasonable facsimile of a human skeleton and donate it to the biology department of a local high school. Who knew rhinoplasty could be a tax write off?

Now, as middle-aged adults, I’d just about given up on trying to find some sort of special “twin” connection between the two of us. At this point, we’ll probably never own pets with names that are palindromes of each other because I don’t see Tino overcoming some commitment issues and getting a dog anytime soon and naming it Revilo, even though I happen to think that’s a wicked cool name. And we’ll probably never both marry people with the same name because I’m married to Nate and I don’t see Tino marrying a Nate of his own unless he (1) overcomes some commitment issues; (2) spontaneously turns gay which is not likely because he likes to have sex with women, or (3) marries a woman who should have been named Kate but wasn’t because she had parents and/or a birth registrar with dyslexia and/or a drinking problem and/or really bad eyesight.

I had pretty much given up hope of discovering that special connection between the two of us when I took another gander at this photograph of Tino and then, all of a sudden, it hit me.

*BAM!* <——————— (This is it hitting me. I typed it out loud to get the full effect.)

We have a connection, all right. It’s spanned over forty years and while not immediately apparent, it does more to cement a cosmic twin relationship between us more securely than any DNA ever could.

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And to think all this time, it was right under my nose.

Or on it, as the case may be.

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