Evil Mrs. Magnuson

A while back, I had to stop at the County Market on Monroe for some Naked Juice or something. It was going to be a quick in and out job. Those of you who watch the show or who know me know that I am not good at seeing people in the store. I mean unless it's a good friend or a close acquaintance, I usually crawl behind the cereal boxes and hang out until the coast is clear. I don't know why. I can't explain it. It's not the point.

On this particular night, as I was making my way through the parking lot, pondering the chilly November air, I spied a former English teacher of mine making her way toward the door. I never got a good look at her face, but it was her: Mrs. Magnuson. Same copper hair. Same slight limp. Same gentle aura.

Mrs. Magnuson was a sweet, high-strung woman who darted all around her classroom delivering lessons on sentence diagramming and "A Rose for Emily." She loved antiquing and teaching Shakespeare. She was an honest-to-goodness lady who blushed at any of our teenage indiscretions. Once when she was showing us a videotape of the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet, she forgot to cover the screen during Juliet's topless scene, which she'd told us in advance she would do. We, of course, all broke out in hee-haws and guffaws at the mere sight of boobies, something much more tame than most of us were watching every time we rented a movie at home. Mrs. Magnuson almost broke her leg trying to get around the desk in time to get her sheet of cardboard over the screen. Her face was atomic red; so red it looked really hot, like it might start to melt at any moment. She stood before us, shaking her head and apologizing as earnestly as she could. We all sat there yawning and picking our noses and mostly thinking about what we had done to deserve Shakespeare.

I did the calculations in my head and figured that Mrs. Magnuson and I would reach the entrance to County Market at roughly the same time. That could be bad. Under the glare of the sterile entryway lights she might recognize me and try to make small talk. I tried to alter my pace, to slow down, but I didn't want to make it seem weird. As we neared the entrance, I heard a cell phone ring.

It was Mrs. Magnuson's. Whoo, I thought, if she's distracted by her phone, then I can slide right past her no worries.

She flipped her phone open. "I'm at the mother#$%*(&% store," she said. "What the hell do you want?"

My jaw slammed open. This couldn't be Mrs. Magnuson. She would never in a million years talk like that. I'd seen her at Patricia Doyle no more than a year ago, and she had sat there bidding on antique furniture with a goofy smile on her face that revealed she didn't even know words like that, wouldn't even understand them if you read them to her slowly.

"Don't %&$*@#$ dick me around," she said, "I ain't got time for your %^&$."

A doppelganger, I realized. I slipped around the woman quickly, glancing at her face as I did. This woman was Mrs. Magnuson to a T: same hair, same complexion, same facial lines. But now that I had seen her face it was clear that the aura of kindness and sweetness I'd sensed earlier had been from my sheer recollection of Mrs. Magnuson and not something surrounding this woman in the here and now. In fact, now that I had seen her, I could sense something seriously evil dwelling inside this doppelganger.

I often see people in public who look like other people, and I refer to them as Evil (insert name here).* For example, I see a woman coming out of Theater 3 at Showplace West who looks like Ellen Degeneres, and I will pinch Aubrey and exclaim, "Look it's Evil Ellen Degeneres," as though we live in a world with a mirror image population comprised of the good half and the evil half. In this case, there was no doubt. This woman was Evil Mrs. Magnuson.


*Just for the record, on occasion I will label someone as Good (insert name here). For example, if I see an old man who looks like Pat Robertson, I will most likely say, "Holy crap, look it's Good Pat Robertson." You know it's a total judgment call.

For a great doppelganger video, check this. From the SNL guys who brought you the Chronicles of Narnia rap.