Identical twins switching places is a concept that has fascinated storytellers for years. (For every story like The Parent Trap, there's something like Dead Ringers).
We feel many writers have found new inspiration thanks to Redditor pvakil, who asked: "Identical Twins: Have you ever gone inti work, school, or some other occasion to cover your twin? How did it work out?"
50. Keeping The Rotation Going
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My dad is an identical twin. He and his brother regularly switched places in school. I can't remember the exact subjects but for clarity reasons I'll just say my dad was good at math and my uncle was good at English. The often switched when my dad had an English class and when my uncle had math. The teachers never noticed, but their friends knew the whole time.
49. Caught And Not Rewarded
No, but we did swap classes in primary school. Lasted half the day before the teachers caught us and made us swap back.
Then two weeks later some girls in the year above us got a merit award at assembly for managing the whole day without getting spotted.
48. Assumptions Presumptions
We never covered for each other or anything, but I was working at a casino as a dealer and my twin brother came in the general public entrance and played at a few tables. The floor manager spotted him and asked him "What the hell are you doing? Dealers can't come gamble. You could get fired for this. Get out of there before I report you myself"
Other than that, I've used his ID before to get into a bar because I forgot mine, but that's about it.
47. Close Call; Didn't Matter
My twin brother and I joined a research conference under different teams (my bro & another guy; me & another guy). We were required to make posters, and so we did.
So, day of the research conference comes, my partner and I basically messed up our concluding statement in the poster. We had to reprint our poster with the corrections.
That same morning, my partner and I met in the conference just to leave and reprint our poster. We didn't even register our team.
Luckily, my brother posed as me and registered my team, while his partner registered for his team. In that conference, we missed about 2-3 hours of what could've been the poster presentation or q&a about our respective researches. Sadly, we didn't win anything but thanks for that, twin bro.
46. Foul!
I am an identical twin! I haven't covered him for work or school or anything like that, but I used to play on his IM basketball team when he was sick and he did the same for me on occasion. No one knew, but I fouled an opponent hard on accident and my brother got dirty looks from that team for the rest of the season lol.
45. Saved By The Bell
We were in university and I was in a math class above his. He needed help on his final and just couldnt get a couple concepts so he asked me to take the final for him because he needed an A to get a B for the class. We are identical enough and all you needed was an ID so I thought why not??
Plus he would owe me big time.
I took the test and got him an A. The only hiccup was that his teacher asked me something about their class so I just laughed and walked away.
44. We're Good On The Tests
My identical twin brother has covered a few tests throughout my life, and I for him. The biggest occasion was when I was sick for my online final for a class I'd worked my butt off for, and he had already taken the final the week before. So when I got sick and obviously couldn't go take the test, the decision was pretty easy to offer him a $10 to go take the test again (which he did better on the 2nd time, thank god)
43. Off-Kilter
I went to college with a girl who had an identical twin sister (Let's call her Laura). We shared a design course and the way the desks were laid out had you facing toward each other. We weren't super close or anything but I saw her nearly every day. One day, she's acting a little different. I sort of stared at her for a sec and it clicked. I had never met Laura's sister before but I knew her name (let's call her Kelly), so I greeted her with it. She said "Damn it!" and went on to explain that her and Laura switched classes for a day just to see if they could get away with it. I advised her that she needed a better poker face but agreed to play along to see if anyone else would notice.
42. What Freaky Twin Thing?
My time to shine (kind of) So my brother and I aren't identical, but we look enough alike for people who don't know us to mistake us for twins. Anyways, we've switched our names up a bunch when substitute teachers or something are in class (because normal teachers would know we switched) and then tell them at the end of class. I also know a pair of identical twins who one of them was good at english while the other was good at math. So what did they do? One took both math classes and the other took both English classes. They were never caught. Being a twin has its perks even though you gotta share everything.
41. Charmed, I'm Sure.
I'm a twin. Not identical, but we still look the exact same. On multiple occasions I have gone to her classes to cover for her. One time my sister had an assignment to go see this play, and to prove she went, had to take a selfie in front of the venue. She was out of town, so I went instead and took a selfie of me in front of the place. Worked like a charm, always does.
40. Accidental Coverage
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I'm a twin. We don't ever use this skill to cover one another, but it's a big perk when I go into the coffeeshop or the various other food places in the mall she works in. The staff assumes I'm her and they give me free coffee or discounts on meals.
39. Wasn't Me
Not even twins, but looked a lot like my older brother apparently, enough so the teachers who did not have our class could not tell us apart, he was a trouble maker and i took advantage those few times i did stuff i should not, like sneak into the computer room, and got caught. When the teachers asked who i was i said my brothers name and class and my brother, who is a little technophobic, did not remember sneaking into the computer room or why he would do it and why my classmates where there with him, but he soon realized it was me and not him, he did not rat though.
38. Get Out Of Jail FREE
I know a set of twins that would have frequent run-ins with the law. Each twin would always say they're the other twin when arrested. And then that other twin would show up to court with a rock solid alibi.
37. Guyz It's Me
My twin brother and I are both EMTs but we worked at different companies in the same city at one point. For about a month after he started working I kept getting comments from his coworkers whenever I ran into them like "you're working over there now" or "don't you work with us". And I got so many confused looks from his coworkers and patients too whenever they would see me they'd just stare at me like didn't this guy just leave.
36. It Didn't Work
Back in the time when ATMs didn't exist, I sent my identical twin with my ID to the bank to cash a check. The sharp eyed tellers didn't go for it And made him come and get me to give me my ID back. Lucky I didn't get in more trouble than that.
35. This...Got Away From Me
So I'm not a twin, but...
I've pretended to be. When I get my haircut I would quite often amuse myself by telling interesting lies about my life in responses those questions the hairdresser asks.
'What am I doing at the weekend? Well, I'm going to the Orkney Islands as part of a team trying to re-introduce wolves into the wild...'
'What do I do for a living? Actually I've just got a new job posing the waxworks at Madame Tussaud's...'
I didn't have a regular barber at a regular barbers so I let it run away with me a bit. Eventually it seems I must have stood out a bit too much. I sit down to get my haircut and am asked how my project mapping the tunnels and sewers beneath Barcelona had gone.
So I blamed that on my (non existent) twin brother, and proceeded to describe my upcoming work trip to do specialist pest control at CERN.
34. New Practice Techniques
Not one myself, but i knew a pair on school.
They'd mess around a lot and switch places just for the fun of it. Gonna call them "Drake" and "Josh" for this. Josh was in the band and Drake wasn't, and Josh gets his leg injured a day before a concert, And he has a solo in the concert. Drake decided to go in Josh's place. Problem was, he had no clue how to play trumpet. He had 1 day to learn about 3 years of Trumpet.
No one saw Drake at school the day of the concert. Josh was not there either(obviously.) At the concert, Drake shows up dressed in Josh's concert outfit, nervous as hell. When Drake has to do the solo, he gets up there, and NAILS IT LIKE A PROFESSIONAL.
Turns out, Josh could've gone to school that day with crutches, but didn't because he stayed home to teach Drake how to play. They only stopped practicing to either eat lunch or when one of them had to use the bathroom.
33. Professional Level Fun
Not me but this reminded me of two NBA players who were twins and one game people started theorizing that one of them started illegally playing instead of the other mid game when the other one was hurt, they judged this by how at one quarter of the game the player played like one of the brothers, but the next he started playing the the other brother, they're called the Morris twins if you're wondering, Markieff and Marcus if I'm not mistaken
32. Even The Teachers
I remember one of my elementary school teachers was a twin. She'd tell us stories about how sometimes in school they'd switch classes to give speeches or presentations the other didn't want to do. She said it was fun but sometimes it was very nerve wrecking because they always felt like they were gonna get caught.
31. Nobody Is Looking
Not a twin story, though I have a lot of twins in my family:
My grandmother and my great-aunt (my grandfather's brother) have the same first name. Right after my grandparents got married (so now they have the same last name as well), my great-aunt wanted to go on vacation, but didn't have enough allowed-missed-classes in college to do so.
So my grandmother went and sat in all the lecture hall classes and answered "present" when attendance was taken. No professor ever caught on.
30. Detention, Mr. Potter
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Identical twin.
Switched classes twice.
Caught instantly in first one. Teacher said nothing during class but given hour detention after.
Second, elderly, absent minded shop teacher took roll by lining everyone up on their "number" painted on the floor.
He walked along the line looking down for empty numbers marking his list.
Never noticed a thing.
But a few minutes later he walked over to me, Put his face close to mine and I was busted.
Apparently my brother who had switched into my class had been discovered and the office called the shop teacher saying the wrong twin was in his class.
Once, in Junior High, the girl sitting in front of me turned around and slapped me. "I think you're mean", she says.
When she saw the surprised look I had she realized she slapped the wrong twin. Some minor grievance she had had with him.
29. Peepers
I used my twin sisters license when I was pulled over by the cops. I was 16 and my sister had gotten her license before me. Technically I wasn't doing anything illegal because where I am from once you do the written test you can drive with any licensed driver. However, the police look for bribes and I should have been more careful about where I was driving. For context I was practicing in a school parking lot (on the weekend when nobody was there). The problem is this parking lot neighbors a police station and the fence is made of wire so the police probably just got curious and bored.
28. Serving Size
Back in school, we found it absolutely hilarious to swap. We'd attend each other's classes and all but the teacher were in tears. More recently, I was working behind a bar and my brother walks in with my family. My manager, absolutely fuming, begins walking over to my brother and then looks at the bar to see me serving someone. He confronts me about it and instantly bursts into laughter, glad he took it well, but that could've gone badly!
27. Unnoticed Duplications
I have a good story. My history teacher senior year was a total jerk and was very full of himself. I had my identical twin come down from his study hall and sit in class, with me. Same period. He never noticed and we did it several times. We would both ask and answer questions right after each other and he somehow didn't notice! Absolutely hilarious everyone else in the period was really silent the whole time (very rare in his class) and were dropping hints to my teacher in their responses to his questions.
26. It's My Twin And I'll Switch If I Want To
I don't have a twin but a guy I went to school with (and had a huge crush on for years) has a twin brother. On the last day of school I wanted to tell him that I always had a crush on him just to get it out and see what he says but of course on that exact day they wanted to see whether their switch would work or not. The teacher didn't notice and handed him his degree but I did immediately. Never saw him again and never told him either.
25. The #Queen
My mom has a twin and once told me that her sister wanted to break up with her boyfriend, but did not know how to, so my mom went on a walk with him and pretended to be her sister, to break up for her.
On The walk he started to talk about how weird her sister (my mom) was, and my mom god mad and was like "yeah, she never liked you, she's breaking up. Btw, I'm (my moms name)."
He was totally baffled and had no idea, while my mom walked away like a queen.
Makes me laugh every time. Poor mom.
24. The Joke Sailed Over Our Heads
Managed to switch midway through a double period of English, he had his blazer on the back of his chair and I came in with mine on, people knew and were laughing but the teachers didn't cotton on. Which is a shame, because my brother proceeded to write a sexist piece on how women can't park for an advertising task, which didn't win me any favours with my female teacher.
23. There's Secretly Three Of Us
I'm a fraternal twin. The plot twist here is that my older sister looks exactly like my twin instead. So while my twin and I would never be able to do a switcheroo, they actually pulled it off once for an April Fool's Day prank. They switched for two class periods with one teacher's permission. I was in Chinese with my older sister (instead of my twin like usual) and halfway through the class my twin shows up because she couldn't do any conducting (my older sister was band president). My poor teacher was so confused.
22. You're Just Now Me Too
I'm an identical twin, my brother and I apparently are 'so identical' that people I went to school with and worked around sorta have up on telling us apart. It got to the point where I now just answer to his name as well as mine. Even though we have very different personalities we always got away with covering for each other when we weren't together. On the whole no real issues came up, probably because both of us are quite unassuming.
21.My Twin's Failures
My sister is older than me by 14 months and we would get mistaken for twins all the time. I was slightly shorter and skinnier than her but not by much.
When she was 5yo, she had a chance to get into this very prestigious competitive all girls' elementary school. To get in, they had a bunch of things you had to do: family interview with the school, an entrance exam, second set of interviews, so on.
My parents and my sister went to the first interview and it went well ; they had high hopes. But right before the written exam, in typical kid character, my sister fell sick. She could not go. Did my parents say, "oh, well. Sucks for us" ? Nope. They dressed me up, coached me to call myself by my sister's name and took me to the written test. I was 4. I could not write. I didn't even take a pencil to the test. I looked out the window almost the entire time, longing to go out and play at the playground below.
As soon as the test was over, the kids were expected to gather in a room for a play session type thing. The teacher remarked to my parents, "Your daughter looks smaller." I don't remember anything after that. Maybe my parents died of embarrassment and hauled me out?
Needless to say, I did not pass the test and my sister still jokingly whines about it.
20. Deliberately Misleading
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I lived with twins and made the biggest fool of myself.
Enough time had passed that I was definitely expected to know the difference between them. Well, I didn't. One day I dropped by their work, a burger joint. One of the twins was there wearing a name tag, perfect. I said "hi Lydia!" And Lydia smiled and said Hi!!
Then I drove home and saw the other one. "Hey Steph how's it going?" -Uh, I'm Lydia...
"Haha nice try Lydia's working right now."
-Oh, no Steph's covering for me at work today.
UNFAIR
19. Punchéd
Had identical triplets at school. At the time Andrew was in my class, Richard and Simon were in other classes.
April 1st they swapped around and we had Simon in my class. Teacher had no idea so Simon deliberately got a detention for his brother.
Next day Andrew served the detention and Simon had a very conspicuous black eye.
18. Fred And George If They Were High School Girls
I'm not a twin myself, but I used to have identical twin step-sisters (Not anymore due to the calling off of an engagement and other complicated stuff). When we lived together, they were in high school and I was in fourth grade.
One year for April Fool's Day, they decided to switch schedules with each other and see if their teachers and classmates would notice that they switched out. They were good students, and before they went through with it got an okay from the principal. If I remember right, it went pretty well and nobody really noticed.
They were also on the basketball team together and were known for tricking the other team and giving the announcer a really hard job. They had the same theater class too, and would work on scenes together, switching parts if they ever needed to.
17. Setting Identifiers
We've never covered for each other since we're in health care and that could be bad but we have switched places at school before. The teacher didnt believe we would do that to him even though the whole class told him we did it. We told him after and he got a good chuckle out of it.
Currently we work at the same place and the first thing I do when meeting new people is warn them I have a twin. She wears glasses now so we can't switch like we used to. Some of the Residents still get confused.
16. I Wasn't Distant; I Just Wasn't
My sister had to go to my chemistry class because it was required that I attend both a chemistry class and a nursing school meeting at the same time. Obviously couldn't been in two places at once so I said something to both colleges about my predicament and both stated I'd have to choose and face the consequences.
So I had her attend my horrible chemistry class. In the end no one really knew the difference except my friends in chemistry ended up asking why I acted weird last time, and didn't talk to them. When I told them its because it wasn't me they were SHOOK.
15. No Driving
My brother took my driving test for me and passed. HOWEVER, i live in Vanocouver Canada which is like 80% asian and they previously cought a asian guy doing over 100 tests for people if you paid him and they installed some crazy face recognition cameras and 3 weeks after my brother passed... we were called in by a police detective looking at identity fraud. We managed to convince him we did identity sharing at best lol
I had to give back my license. ( i must also specify i had been driving for 3 years prior, never had a crash, i only had my brother do it because it was convenient to me as i was out of the city )
i've had many other twin situations that did pay off though.
14. A Cute Little Crush
My Grandmother was a twin and told me this story, she passed now unfortunately.
Back when they were younger, she had a crush on a boy in school, but the boy had a class with her twin, and actually asked her twin out.
Her twin knew my grandmother had a crush on the boy, so she said yes to the date, and they switched for the date... Apparently it worked, and she still smiled thinking back about that date.
I loved how innocent and cute she was when she told that story. They also tried switching classes one day but the teacher caught them. The principal just laughed and told then not to do it again!
13. Seeing Double--That's Why I'm At The Doctor's
This reminds me of my old boss and his identical twin. This was in a small, doctors office (most days just me and the doc working) and his twin came in and was sitting in the waiting/reception area talking with me. A patient walked in and said "hey doc, slow day?" his twin says "yep so I'm just chatting with Darth". They start chatting and then real doc comes out, patient does a double take, and both doc and his brother start laughing. It was great.
12. Playing The System
There is a set of identical twins who share a house next-door, 28 year old guys, and we get each other mail all the time. Just today I was checking for mail and one had a Costco flyer delivered (Costco is like a religion in California and practically everyone has a membership) and I thought, "How brilliant! Bryan has the membership and he can say he lost his card, get a replacement and give it to Steven to use!" (Costco membership cards have the member's photo on it.) An hour or so later later I remembered that the membership is for two people per household and Steven probably has a legit card.
11. Excuses, Excuses
I'm a somewhat fan of Rami Malek (he played Freddie Mercury in the movie bohemian rhapsody) and he tells of a story with his identical twin, Sami. His brother Sami needed to recite a Greek or Roman — I forget —monologue to pass a class. Rami, who was in some sort of theater school had recently worked on this exact type of thing and Sami took advantage of that. Rami agreed and they met outside of Sami's class.
Sami told Rami what to wear so Rami would look like Sami. Rami preformed the monologue and got a standing ovation from the class. The teacher took him outside (Sami was in his car at this time) and questioned him about when he learned that, and why. Rami told her it was a hobby of his. She studied his face, and asked if he "could come in tomorrow and do this again" for her other class. He asked if he "had passed the class", and she said "yes".
He said "no I'm busy tomorrow" and left. He just walked out.
10. "My dad..."
My dad is an identical twin... He has some stories.
He did tell me of the time when he was in college that he asked his brother to cover for him in a Friday afternoon class so my dad could leave town early to get back to his girlfriend. My dad and my uncle were majoring in the same subject so that helped, but they had different electives. I did help that most of the students in the class knew both my uncle and my dad, so they helped my uncle out when he got cornered by a question every once in a while. The prof never caught on.
9. "I was working..."
I was working in a department store, and my twin came in to grab something. As he was walking though the store my manager mistook him for me and proceeded to chew him out for being out of uniform and leaving the electric section empty. He let her yell for a bit and then told her he was my twin. Now I don't tell people that I'm a twin (too many stupid questions) so even when he told her she didn't believe him. I happened to be walking nearby when i heard the interaction and finally put it to rest.
8. "I'm a twin..."
I'm a twin, we aren't identical, my cousins are though! They would switch spots to take tests for each other in different classes when they were in high school, because one was usually better at certain subjects, it never failed, except a single time, they got suspended, but they managed to convince everyone that it was the first time and they only wanted to see if it would work, even though they'd been doing it all throughout high school, so they didn't get in too much trouble. They still talk about it proudly and we all still laugh about how they managed it, their mother still scolds them whenever they bring it up because even she believed their lie back then
7. "My dad..."
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My dad is an identical twin. Legend has it that on their 16th birthday my dad's twin was sick. My father went and passed his own driver's test, went home to change clothes, and then went back and passed his brother's test for him.
6. "My aunts..."
My aunts are identical twins, they used to swap places on test days in school. One would take a math test twice, the other would take an English test twice. Since they often dressed the same anyway, it wasn't obvious. Yes they were successful.
5. "Identical mirror..."
Identical mirror twin here. It never worked out well for us, we look similar but personality wise we're pretty easy to tell apart. The face would get you in the door but 5 minutes later it's straight to the principal's office.
4. "No..."
No, but there were a few times where she's gone into my work when I wasn't there and people mistook her for me. I suppose she's lucky they didn't try to get her to cover for me, haha.
3. "One day I was sick..."
One day I was sick in high school but my mom made me still go to school. I had an in-class essay that was 25% of my grade that day, and since my sister had that class earlier in the day and got to see the prompt, I convinced her to do it for me. We have different clothing styles so we switched clothes and she wrote my essay, which I got a B+ on (I was happy with that considering I was pretty sick and couldn't have done that). We decided to just go the whole day like that and no teachers caught on.
Another time that kinda sucked though was also in high school when my twin fell in front of everyone at lunch. It got around that I was the one who fell. My boyfriend even came to me making sure I was okay. I was so embarrassed because literally the whole school was laughing about it. Obviously my sister didn't do much to make it clear it wasn't me lol.
There were times when I have also done embarrassing things and said it was my twin. Comes in handy
Now I have bleach blonde hair and people can easily tell who is who! But we live in different cities so we can't switch much anyways.
2. "Identical twin..."
Identical twin: The issue that a lot of people overlook about this whole swap is that even though you might look like someone, you're behavior is different and there's a ton of detailed information you would need to know to pull it off.
When my brother and I did it in 3rd grade I didn't even bother to ask him what desk was his.
1. "Me and my twin..."
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Me and my twin have a thing where when we're not together, and someone mistakes us for the other, we just pretend to be the other. I've actually had lunches with people I don't know, because at that point I'm in too deep... and it's scary.
What's also weird is when the person/ people recognizes us, so we play along, but then it ends up that neither of us even knew them.