inadvertent identity theft

There’s this lady here at work who constantly mistakes me for another girl here named Pearly. I once sat with this lady, ate lunch and engaged in some polite chatter with her for a full thirty minutes. We have the usual office kitchen run-ins every now and then, but every time she calls me “Pearly.”

I think she initially sat down to eat with me that one time because she thought I was Pearly. Pearly is also Asian and she wears glasses (which I do occasionally to protect my eyes from the perils of Dell computer monitors), so I suppose I can understand how people would confuse us, but honestly apart from that, we look nothing alike. I am about 6 inches taller than Pearly and we’re not even the same ethnicity.

Pearly is also on the Travel Team here at work. Every time I see this nice lady, she asks me about the Travel Team.

At first it was annoying but now I just think of it as funny. Like Creed from the Office, who keeps calling Meredith “Mary Beth” and Angela “Andrea.”

It also reminds me of the Benihana Christmas episodes when Michael can't tell the two Asian waitresses apart.

I used to gently remind her that I’m Melissa, not Pearly, but she seems set on thinking that I’m Pearly, so I’ve sort of resigned myself to that fate. I know identify theft is illegal but hopefully I won’t get in too much trouble for it. I like to think of it as my training for when I assume false identities for my future CIA training.