Oh, almost forgot…

I was in the middle of another one of those faux-celebrity sightings this weekend—and I was the faux celebrity!

At the grocery store last night I was walking along the soft-drink aisle and had just bent over to pick up some fine store-brand diet sodas when a guy walked by, did a double-take, and started to go on by, then stopped and said, “I know it’s not you, but has anyone ever said you look like Eli Gold?”

Ah yes, my old doppleganger—famed as The Voice of the Arena Football League, The Voice of NASCAR, and more irksome, The Voice of the Crimson Tide.

“Yeah, I get that every once in a while,” I said in my most avuncular voice, “but I’m not him.”

Not that we didn’t used to share some resemblances—both of us are of the more girthsome sorts, and nearsighted, and we both have the broad jaw and freakishly large head that are the marks of incredible intelligence. And I can imitate him given the proper goading.

However, Gold is now white-headed, with lots of head showing, while I still have a quite respectable covering, even though it has the George Clooneyesque graying about the temples. And Eli has about four inches in height on me, and in the day, outweighed me by a good 50 pounds.

Anyway, I just chuckled and told the guy that I do get that some, and that I used to go to church with a little old man who would come up to me every Sunday and tell me I looked “just like that Eli feller.” Which was probably too much to share, because the guy then started wanting to talk about Eli’s broadcast schedule, and what all he does, and Alabama football. “Yeah, I saw you and I thought to myself, ‘Hey, that’s him,’ but then I figured it couldn’t be, because what would he be doing here in Trussville at 10 at night!”

“Oh, you know, getting groceries!” I kept trying to go on and get the rest of my stuff, and could quite flee because we had to discuss more things about which I have no personal knowledge. We finally were the whole length of the aisle apart before he finally decided to give me some cue that I could run away. Which I did.

Man, being a celebrity is tough.
posted by Terry at 12:45:00 PM