"YOU KNOW WHO YOU REMIND ME OF?"

Do you remember that show Moonlighting? Bruce Willis was the lead actor and Cybil Sheppard was the somewhat-ditzy rich blonde and, together, they--what?--solved murder investigations, or something?

The reason I ask is because there was also a guy on the show--kind of an ancillary character--who kind of helped them out and answered phones and looked up information. I don't know the actor's name--Curtis Armstrong--but he achieved perhaps his greatest fame as "Booger" in Revenge of the Nerds.

The greatest line ever, in a movie, at least to my my pubescent mind was, "Fuck this. Pan down. Let's see some bush." A moment later, "Gentlemen...we have bush."

Anyway, my point is this: I have never been glossed admirably when people say, "You know who you remind me of?" or "You know who you look like?" No, I don't, and, if past experiences remain true to the present, I don't want to know. I have been compared to Alan Trammell, the ex-Detroit Tiger great, and I have been told that I look like Kris Draper of the Red Wings and, long ago, in grade school, my nickname was Jerry K, because I struck out a lot in baseball and I, supposedly, reminded people of Jerry Lewis. Thanks, guys.

I think that the somewhat-simian slope of my lower jaw jogs people's perceptions. Whatever.

One time, in college at Michigan State, we were in a dorm room, drinking some beers, when a girl upon whom I'd had my eye, looked at me for a lingering moment and said, "Who do you remind me of?"

I cringed. "I, uh, I don't know," I said. "I have that sort of face where I always remind people of someone."

She sat there, stumped, and sucked at her beer bottle. "No," she said, "you look like someone. Who is it?! This is gonna kill me!" She snickered--in my eyes, at least--sexily.

I wanted to help her...in any way possible. "Is it an actor?" I offered.

"Yeah. Actually, yeah! That guy from Moonlighting!"

Bingo. I had it. Blessed with a receding hairline and a somewhat-muscular body, I thought to myself, Bruce Willis. Hell, that was okay. A lot of women considered him sexy.

"Bruce Willis?" I asked, smiling.

"Oh God, no," she said, and set her bottle down too quickly. Beer, jostled from the abuse, surged up and exited in the form of foam.

[Wonder Twin Powers, activate, indeed.]

"No?" I said, somewhat uneasily.

"No. That other guy. I don't know his name...."

"Booger?" I muttered.

Her face lit up and she barked out a laugh. "Booger! Yes! You look just like Booger!"

Everyone gathered had laughed and had it on at my expense. I pasted a slanted grin to my mug and soon thereafter left the party. "Booger," I'd muttered to myself as I had walked down the hall. "Fucking Booger."

The reason I open myself, flay myself, in this way, to you, dear Internet, is because yesterday I actually got a decent "You know who you look like...." It happens so damned infrequently, I figured I would mark the occasion for posterity with Internet shallowness.

After the meeting ended, a woman stood up and looked at me. "I was trying to figure out all meeting who you remind me of," she said.

Uh-oh, I thought. Here we go. Who is it this time? Quasimodo? Abe Begoda? Willard Scott? I pushed my hat down over my eyes. "Oh yeah? Who?" I asked.

"Mark Wahlberg."

I sputtered a laugh. "Marky Mark?" I shook her hand. "Thanks."

"For what?" she asked.

"Never mind," said I.