Twin within a twin

Every parent of twins or multiples knows that when you’re out with your kids you get extra attention from (mostly) well-intentioned folks.

Sometimes people say nice things, sometimes it’s annoying, sometimes people even touch your kids. Most of the time, though, it’s no big deal.

But in our town we have a woman who we do try to avoid when we go out walking to the park or to the library.

She’s a twin within a twin.

She’s an elderly woman, pretty harmless-looking, and I can’t remember precisely what she looks like, which is why she has successfully snagged me more than once.

She’ll hulk after us in velcro sneakers when she sees us to ask if our daughters are twins. Then she’ll say that she has a relative with twins, a sister or something. I can’t remember, honestly.

And then, once she has our attention, she’ll lean in a little to say, “And, I’m a twin within a twin.”

There’s a beat before my palms begin to sweat, and I’ll think “Doh! She caught me again!”

“Oh,” I say, nodding and trying to think of a way to escape because now I remember what’s coming.

But it’s too late. She goes on to explain that she has an extra uterus and the doctors think that she originally had a twin sister, but that she absorbed her sister’s body while she was inside her own mother’s womb.

It’s actually very sad. I always come away from the conversation freaked out and thinking that she’s some sort of Klingon or something (from my Star Trek Next Generation days I remember that Klingons have some sort of double organ situation. You guessed it. I’m a geek.)

My husband said he successfully escaped the twin within a twin on his last walk around town with the girls, so I guess we’re starting to be able to pick her out among the local freak pedestrians.

This is the kind of thing that happens in my crazy little town, and the kind of thing one attracts by just walking around with twins.

Another day I just might tell you about the blonde knife lady. But not tonight. I’m creeped out enough as it is just thinking about the twin within a twin.