Categories: It Happened to Me

Suddenly, all those body-cavity searches I’ve been getting at the airport make sense

My two-year-old nephew Aidan is a genius at identifying the various engines and train cars from the television show Thomas the Tank Engine, but sometimes misidentifies people from their photographs. Recently, he saw a picture of financial bigwig Sherry Cooper (Executive Vice President of the BMO Financial Group and Chief Economist for BMO Nesbitt Burns) and exclaimed “Yoya!”. “Yoya” is the way he pronounces “Lola”, which is the Filipino word for “Grandma”. Ms. Cooper and Mom look nothing alike, but they have very similar hairdos.

Last week, Aidan’s nanny Marvie was reading the paper when he walked up to her, pointed to a picture and yelled “Joey!”. Thanks to the accordion, my appearance in the paper is hardly an unexpected event. Marvie turned over the paper, expecting to see a photo of me playing the accordion at a club or on the street but instead saw a photo of Uday Hussein.

Yeesh.

Photo: Uday Hussein.

I think he automatically associates facial hair with me. Of any family members in Canada, immediate and extended, only Dad and I are capable of growing a decent beard, and Dad prefers to keep clean-shaven.

For the record, I have never assisted an Iraqi dictator, I have never tortured any Iraqis, and I look like this:

Photo: Joey deVilla.

Joey deVilla

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Anonymous says:

January 2, 2004 at 8:41 pm

Actually, there is an uncanny resemblance when you have your 'serious face' on. Try and get someone to take a pic of you in the exact same pose and look on your face... or I suppose I could get in some Photoshopping practice for FARK. ;)