Last night was a memorable one in the never-ending, pulse-pounding drama that is my life. I was briefly mistaken for another man.

I had an appointment to get a dental filling replaced. When I came into the office, the receptionist greeted me happily, but – and here’s where the conductor should cue the ominous double note from the horns – she didn’t greet me by name. I said hello and sat down with my Kindle to wait. She said the doctor was running a little behind.

A few minutes later the (very beautiful) dental hygienist came out and said they were ready for me, but again (bum BUUUM) without saying my name. I was a little surprised that she was assisting with a filling, but I went along (frankly, I’d follow her anywhere). I sat down in the Comfy Chair, and she put the bib around my neck. She asked if I’d taken the antibiotics required after my hip replacements. I said my doctor had rescinded that order, and that I’d had them fax an affidavit to that effect to the dentist’s office. The dentist, from the other side of the partition, yelled, “Yes, I got that!” So the hygienist changed the record on the screen suspended just to my left.

“OK,” she said then. “Just a cleaning and check-up tonight, right?” she said.

No, I answered. I came to get a tooth filled.

A few moments of confusion followed, until we established that she’d been expecting a guy whose name sounds kind of like mine. So I retired to the waiting room again. The receptionist laughed (with some embarrassment). Apparently she’d mistaken me for this guy with the similar-sounding name who, she said, had a gray beard like me, looked kind of like me, and wore a hat. And also had had his hips replaced. I told the hygienist she’d probably better change the guy’s record back on the antibiotics thing.

And a few minutes later, in walked a guy who did look kind of like a taller version of me. Limping slightly. And he was wearing a hat. (A cowboy hat, but you get the idea.) In order to explain our laughter, I explained to him that he’d nearly gotten my tooth filling.

So if I disappear suddenly, somebody should check this guy out to see if he faked his death. I know from my mystery reading that that sort of thing happens all the time.