Doppelganger

I have a doppelganger.  It's creepy.

Years ago, when I worked for the soul sucking car dealership, I did preliminary interviews for prospective employees.  I also, on occasion, did exit interviews (a.k.a. firing).

One of people who fell into both categories was a young lady we'll call L.N. since those were her initials.

L.N. was young, about 20.  She was applying for a position as cashier.  At a dealership, a cashier does not just man a cash register and collect money.  A cashier also closes out repair orders, answers the phone, and receipts money for the sales department.

I was dubious about L.N. since the only other job experience she had was working at a gas station as a cashier and she seemed low-normal in the I.Q. range and cashiering at a dealership can be stressful and busy.  She assured me that she was a fast learner, very dependable and could handle the people who wanted to jump through the window at her when they saw their service bill.

This was a big mistake.  She struggled with the credit card machine.  She was late at least once a week.  When customers were angry about their service bill (which they had no right to be, any work done out of the scope of warranty work had to be pre-approved and initialed by the service adviser noting the time and date of the call) she sat there like a plant, saying nothing, doing nothing, just sucking up oxygen.

She was lax about receipting money in.  Since I did the daily deposit, this affected me greatly.  Reconciling and preparing the deposit should have taken about 10 minutes.  She screwed it up regularly and it often took an hour.

A bit of back story: L.N. was a very demure, quiet mouse-like girl.  She wore long skirts, no make-up, the scraped back hair.  She had a long-time boyfriend she had been going with since she was 14 but since they both belonged to the super huge ultra right wing fascist born again Fundy church in town, they were celibate.  Her stepfather was some sort of grand poobah at that church and although she was twenty, she still lived at home, had never spent time away from home, and still had a curfew.  Her mom still made her lunch, as well.

Right around the time L.N. turned 21, she peeled right out of the squadron.  Suddenly, she was wearing short skirts and eyeliner and the hair got big.  She broke up with the long time celibate church boy and started hanging out with some of the shadier porters who worked at the dealership.

Her work was suffering even more and it's taken me a long time, but I finally realized that she was either doing a lot of coke or a lot of speed.  She looked awful, couldn't function other than the most basic of movements and whatever skills she had completely went to hell.  I couldn't even read her handwriting any longer.

Right around the same time, she decided she needed a new, flashy car to go with the new L.N.  Since she had no credit and her mom and step dad refused to co-sign for her since they were on the verge of throwing her out of the house, she ended up overpaying a whole hell of a lot for a year old Camaro.  Several people at the dealership, including the Finance & Insurance Manager, advised her against doing this.  She did it anyway.  It was the same as putting a car on your 22% interest Visa card.

There were tears and name calling when I fired her.  This was after she had been told to get her poop in a group several times or she'd be gone.  The dealership was in it's go-go days, selling over 300 cars a month and her work was not even the lowest common denominator as far as effort.  She was also late almost every day.

She then turned up working at a tanning salon I frequented.  I was convinced she didn't give me the full minutes I asked for and turned my month package into 20 days so I switched salons.

She showed up working at my favorite bagel place and I'm sure she spit on my bagel while applying my schmer.

At one point, she went to the same hairdresser I did and it seemed like every time I got my hair cut, she was there getting that bleached blonde trailer park do touched up.

During all of this, her looks deteriorated to the point she could only be described as strung out.  I heard rumors that she was couch surfing, picking up guys in bars and going home with them and basically living out of her car and her mom and step dad wanted nothing to do with her, considering her a bad influence on her younger siblings.

I used to run into her occasionally when I played on a dart league at the damn dippiest dive bar in town.  This is NOT a place you go to hang out, although she did.  I played darts, I left.  She had a permanent stool and took frequent bathroom trips.

Every time I saw her, I'm surprised the dirty looks she shot me didn't peel the eyeshadwo right off my eyelids.

Today, I signed on to tan at the salon Martin goes to.  (NOTE: Yes, we have a tanning bed.  We don't, however, have a basement to put it in so it lives at my in-laws and even if we didn't need new bulbs, I don't fancy going to their basement to tan.)  While Martin tanned, I bought a membership and chatted up the girls working there as far as best bed, what type lotions do you sell and Oh My God I can buy that online for a third of the price, no offense and wow, your hair is really cute. 

Guess who walked into the salon and shot me some really dirty looks?  She's probably going to sneak in my booth while I am tanning and put itching powder in my underwear or something.  I just can't lose this chick.

 

Comments

[Amy]

Are you sure it's a Doppelganger and not a stalker?
I always read that dopplegangers were your exact doubles somewhere in the world. (It's actually German for "double walker") Most people never see them (others do and tell them about it) If a person sees their own doppleganger it's usually a sign of something bad to come. It sounds like she's more of a stalker if she only shows up every place that you frequent.

Back in the early 1990's DOZENS of people told me that my doppleganger worked at a bar in Lansing and was a student at Cooley Law School. I was afraid to go see her and the last person that pointed it out to me also said she was sick of hearing about me, too.

[loretta]

Yes, a doppleganger is your double - often a ghost of you.

This chick is more like a Bad Penny.

[Angela]

She keeps coming back like a fungus. That is creepy.

[Michelle]

Lisa, if I didn't know you so well, I'd swear you were making up stories just to entertain us. Hope you lose this chick soon---that would creep me out as well.

[vero]

Part of the joy of small-town life!

[Nadine]

I'd keep an eye on that one, Lisa.