Foiled By Twin Tactics

(I’m an identical twin, and my sister and I manage to confuse everyone we meet. If I can’t remember taking a picture with her, I often get confused myself! This happens during our first maths statistics class we take together with a teacher known for being a laugh.)

Teacher: “Ah! [My Name], [Twin]! Just my luck, I’ve got both of you.”

(He stares at us a moment, looking between us carefully. Finally, he smiles triumphantly.)

Teacher: *points to my sister* “[My Name]!” *points to me* “[Twin]!”

(We shake our heads, grinning, and point to each other. He sighs, and gets on with the lesson. About mid-way through, he pauses, and grins.)

Teacher: “Actually, this is a perfect time to test a statistic.” *points to us* “If I’m guessing which twin is which, statistically, I’ll be right half the time, because it’s fifty-fifty chance. So, if out of a set number of trials, I get you two right more than half the time, I know the difference between you.”

(The class nods. This makes sense.)

Teacher: “Right, then, we’re making a bet. If I can tell the two of you apart more than 5 times out of the next 10 lessons, I win. If not, you win, and the last lesson of term, we’ll have a Christmas party instead.”

(We agreed to his terms. Over the next lessons, my sister and I did everything in our power, with the help of our classmates, to fool him. We’d swap bags, seats, bangles, anything we could. Our classmates would call us the wrong names, too. Or, we’d just do nothing and act like we had. Needless to say, the score was 10:0 to us, and we had the best Christmas party ever that year! Teacher was such a good sport about losing that he brought in a ton of food for us, too!)