My sister e-mailed recently with the earth-shattering news that there is a teacher at our old high school named Jennifer Hall, which is, of course, my name. It turns out she even teaches geography, which is, of course, what I studied. It’s possible that she’s an alternate version of me (or I’m an alternate version of her). Imagine if I’d moved back to Minnesota after my master’s in geography, as planned. What would I have done? Probably kicked around for a while aimless until I decided to suck it up and go to teachers’ college. And wouldn’t it be ironic that I’d end up teaching at my old high school? I shall think of this Jennifer Hall every time I get grumpy. As we like to say in Minnesota, it could be worse.
Once I got an e-mail out of the blue from a Jennifer Hall who was looking for another Jennifer Hall, but I was not the Jennifer Hall she wanted, it turned out. She was Jennifer Hall who went by Jen and she had been born, she said, in the same hospital on the same day as the other Jennifer Hall, who actually went by Jennifer. They’d been in touch for part of their lives and now Jen was looking for Jennifer. Was I her? Alas, I was not.
Mr. Mock thought that since we were Jennifer, Jenny, and Jen Hall, perhaps we could form a crime-fighting syndicate. I thought this an excellent idea and imagined that we could wear disco outfits whilst vanquishing evil, and even suggested it, but Jen Hall wasn’t interested.