by RAF KATIGBAK

We’ve all had those moments. Those awkward, painful instances when we suddenly realize we just said the exact wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. Those strange, painful Larry David-type situations that leave us seeking shelter under the nearest rock or praying that an alien craft would suddenly just beam us up (mostly from shame, but partly for the free anal probe).

Case in point: Last week, while contemplating the cultural dichotomy of the latex and lace shops in that northern no man’s land of Plaza St-Hubert, I happened upon the most disturbing window display at a store dedicated to baby gowns.

What was most disconcerting was not the hideous, elaborate powder blue chiffon and pink lace trim froufrou baby dresses populating the window, or why anyone would want to dress their newborn like a Puerto Rican wedding cake, but rather the pint-sized mannequins themselves, whose liquefied features were not unlike the melted Nazis in the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I recoiled in horror—“Those are the creepiest babies I have ever seen!” As I turned away, I noticed a middle-aged Québécois woman staring incredulously at me. Wondering why she was so shocked at my declaration, I looked down and saw, sitting in the doublewide stroller ahead of her, a set of identical twin girls happily drooling away.

It’s these particular instances when any attempt at explanation (“No, I mean... not your babies... the babies in the window ... they’re all gross and melted looking, kinda like mini-Ernest-Borgnines on acid y’know?!...”) would be far too convoluted and painful, leaving me looking more the fool.

What to do then? I had just seemingly insulted her paired progeny, her doppelgangered descendants, the heiresses of her teased hair and the successors of her cut-off sweatpants. But I didn’t really. So do I apologize and acknowledge my faux faux-pas, or ignore it and walk on by, aware that she has full maternal licence to coldcock me upside the head with a bottle of puréed carrots?

The canvas-y taste of my Chuck Taylor All-Stars fresh in my mouth, I decided on the noble route and was about to apologize. Until I looked closely at her offspring, who in fact, turned out to actually be the creepiest fucking babies I have, to this day, ever seen. No apology necessary, case closed.

But what is it about identical twins that make them especially intriguing, if not downright creepy? From the sideshow oddity of Chang and Eng—the original Siamese twins—to chilling films like David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining or anything involving Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, monozygotic (identical) births have long fascinated the public.

Maybe it’s because many of us were raised to believe we’re all different, special, that each one of us is unique as a snowflake and blah blah blah... Twins are a bold-faced reminder that we’re all just a jumble of genetic code, hormones and chemicals. But perhaps twins are fascinating because they hold a key to creation itself. At one point, psychologists thought identical twins held the key to the nature vs. nurture debate.

But not everyone sees them as a boon. Madagascar’s Antaisaka tribe considers giving birth to twins a fady (taboo) and at one point in recent history identical newborns were either left in the forest, or worse.

Here in Quebec, that would mean a heck of a lot of crybabies left on Mount Royal. Out of 73,000 registered births per year, 2,000 are twins and 80 are triplets. In fact, a recent health report announced that despite a 19 per cent decrease in the birth rate from 1994 to 2004, there was a dramatic 27 per cent increase in multiple births in that same decade. This is due largely to the increased popularity of fertility clinics (in vitro fertilization increases chances of having multiple births from one per cent to a whopping 30 per cent). As the average age of Quebec mothers increases, the use of fertility clinics becomes more popular.

Whether you believe this is a conspiracy the Just For Laughs people cooked up to assure ample participation in future annual Twins Parades, or a secret Raelian plot to get around the whole cloning thing, one thing’s for sure: those were the creepiest babies

I have ever seen and I regret nothing.

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca

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