Move over, “Parent Trap” and “It Takes Two”. Apparently, identical twins can successfully switch places outside the movies, too.
This article is based on two AskReddit threads entitled, “What’s The Craziest Way You’ve Abused Your Power Of Mistaken Identity?” and “What’s The Greatest Thing You’ve Accomplished By Swapping Places?”. To see the full threads, check out the links at the end of the article.
1. My Dad is a twin and every so often each one would break up with the other’s girlfriend.
– ymcameron
2. My brother went to a job interview pretending to be me. I (he) got the job, and I’ve been working there for just over a year now.
– nemanavida
3. I’m an identical triplet and we play a game where you show up to the others classes randomly without notice and they have to go with it. For example, my brother would look into his math class and see me sitting there grinning at him, then he had to run to whatever class I had and maybe the other brother would be there already but he doesnt know.
– Cat_Lauer
4. “My twin brother and I went to different colleges and didn’t generally reveal to the friends we made that we each had a twin. One day a group of people approached me in the street, calling me by my brother’s name and asking me if I would like to join them in the pub. I knew that my twin brother was already at the pub so I said I’d bet them free drinks if I beat them to the pub in a foot-race, even if I gave them a head start. They agreed and ran off at top speed while I stood there casually checking my watch and buffing my fingernails on my lapel, only for them to arrive exhausted, and find ‘me’ standing at the bar, drink already in hand.”
– ask_me_if_Im_lying
5. My dad is an identical twin. When he was dating my mom in college, he used to play a game with his twin. He would call my mom and part way through the conversation hand the phone off to my uncle. My uncle would see how long he could carry the conversation before he had to tap out and hand the phone off to my dad. Anyways, the first time my mom ever said “I love you” to my ‘dad’, she was actually talking to my uncle. My uncle faltered, and that was when my mom realized what had been happening. They must’ve straightened everything out because they ended up married and had me.
– gocanadiens
6. “My fathers father had an identical twin, and they both were in the air force. First trick was that my grandfather was blind in one eye due to a childhood accident while running with scissors. His brother went and took his physicals for him but they caught them just before pilot training. Fast forward, they are both active duty during World War II, and one is stationed in California while the other is stationed somewhere at a U.S. base in the Pacific. My grandfather, Earl, was the guy who would put pilots in their cockpit and make sure it was sealed correctly before they took off. My grandfather tells them right before they leave, “I’ll see you when you get there” with a wink. His brother, with the same last name, was the guy who would undo the cockpit for the pilots after they landed in the pacific, and he would say to them, “Hey you made it! i got here pretty fast, huh?” producing the most astonished look of bewilderment and amazement one could muster. They ran this joke for quite some time and even got written up in the newspaper about it later on.
– enoughtoday
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7. My brother and I had a sequence of 10 numbers memorized, so if anyone ever asked if we were telepathic we could prove we were.
– Almost_Pi
8. I had a friend who had an identical twin, and they both spent the first month of University (they went to the same school) convincing everybody that there was actually three of them and that they were triplets!! By the time they decided to come clean, nobody would believe them that there wasn’t a third of them around somewhere. You can’t trick me, I’ve hung out with Luke countless times!!”
– city_of_lakes
9. I have twin brothers. When they were about 12 or 13 my brother Gio was grounded from the computer. My mom was out so he decided to sneak on. He was wearing headphones so he didn’t hear when she came in. She caught him, he pretended to be his twin Dante. My mom doubted herself, called for Gio. Dante, having heard everything, responded, trying to help his brother out. My mom was confused for a bit, but being a mom figured it out. They both got grounded but she admitted she was very close to falling for it.
– Popcorn_For_Dinner
10. Not me, but my dad and uncle are twins. Just a few years ago my dad fell off a ladder removing Christmas lights and broke his shoulder. After surgery Dad had to go to physical therapy for a while. A few months in, my uncle comes up from out of town for some reason I can’t remember and Dad hatches a plan to be miraculously healed. He tells my uncle all the names of his receptionists and therapist. He wanted me to go in and film it, but I was afraid it would ruin the joke. So I’m told that my uncle goes in and starts going through stretches while the therapist looks amazed. She says, ‘My word I’ve never seen such quick improvement. I never thought you would be able to lift your arm over your head again! What changed since last session?’ My dad’s family are a bunch of wise asses, so my uncle starts telling the therapist about hearing of a home remedy by rubbing ostrich oil on his shoulder. Meanwhile, my dad goes up to the receptionist for his appointment and apologizes for being late. The lady just looks confused and says, ‘But you already came in.’ My dad just looks confused back at her as she takes him to his room. I was told that the therapist gasped and took a triple take when she saw them both.
– Seanybonbon
11. I’ve run into people (not close friends, just acquaintances) I haven’t wanted to talk to and have pretended to be my identical twin to avoid annoying small talk: Oh, I’m sorry, you must think I am [my name]. We are twins, this happens a lot.”
– thetanpecan
12. Not exactly intentional, but I was visiting my brother’s college campus, where he lived in the dorm. I parked and was headed in, when a pair of female hands covered my eyes from behind. I turned around and saw a pretty blonde girl, to whom I only had a chance to say hi before she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. She then said, is your brother here yet? I can’t wait to meet him. To which I replied, I think you just did. She looked confused for a couple seconds and then turned bright red. When we both got inside she beat my bro’s arm for a solid five minutes. Apparently he had never told her we were twins, since they had only gone out for a few weeks at the time. They eventually got married but the way she and I met gets brought up just about every family gathering.
– Caption-_-Obvious
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13. My twin brother got me a detention for his dress code violation and neglected to tell me which resulted in me almost getting suspended. In return, I failed his French test.
– thurgood_peppersntch
14. My dad has an identical twin brother; this is his famous story. My family is Iranian, and it is mandatory for young men to serve in the army for a minimum of two years. They do have few exceptions, for example if your eyes are very weak and you can’t see without glasses then you don’t have to serve. My dad had the weaker eyes between the two of them, so he failed his own exam, he took his brother’s I.D. to the army offices and failed the exam again to get his brother out of that responsibility.
– persianversion96
15. My identical twin brother wasn’t the most dedicated student in high school, while I was focused on getting into the college of my dreams (USC). He would often skip class to go hang out with his friends and do things that I didn’t find to be quite beneficial to my goal of success. Well, his ditching habits got out of hand. It was in the second month of senior year of high school, and his 0 period English teacher told him that he had 14 absences, and that if he missed one more 0 Period class, he would drop fail the class and would not be able to graduate. This really threw my brother’s life into gear and he began to come to school early and put his life back together. One day, it was 5 minutes before 0 period had started, and I got a call from my bro. His car broke down and he was stuck 2 miles away from school. He had been trying to fix it for the past 10 minutes and couldn’t figure out what happened. I sensed the urgency in his voice and knew he wasn’t bsing me. I agreed to take his place and miss my ceramics 0 period and take his english class. The only issue was that his class was on the other side of the school. By the time I went to his locker, grabbed his books, and ran to his class, I was about a minute late. I rushed in, and saw the teacher give a sigh of relief when he saw me. So basically, I saved my brother from not graduating. No one noticed that it was me and not him, but I do remember this one girl coming up to me at lunch and asking why I changed clothes. Later found out that she was in the 0 period class.
– supergaro
16. My twin brother was President of the class and I was Vice President our Junior Year. When it came time for after school re-election speeches for senior year, my brother completely forgot and walked home. I did my speech for Vice President, then borrowed a friend’s shirt and made up a Presidential speech for him on the spot. We both won.
– Brandanp
17. While in Iraq, I signed all my legal rights over to my brother. That give him legal rights to my bank account. When my family was in financial trouble, I gave the ok for my brother to take money out of my account. The bank refused to honor the legal document and would not let my brother take money out. Next day he went to the same bank with my passport and took the money out of my account.
– greatmikeshark
18. My Great Grandfather is an identical twin. Whilst leaving the church on his wedding day they managed to swap. For years my Great Grandma thought that was a photo of her and her husband outside the church on the mantlepiece. About 20 years in he finally told her it was his brother on the photo.
– the_pascal_avenger
Sources: What’s The Craziest Way You’ve Abused Your Power Of Mistaken Identity / What’s The Greatest Thing You’ve Accomplished By Swapping Places