Me, or We? — How being a twin affects your sense of identity

Getting to Twinsburg, OH, for this video was rough, and I nearly pooped my pants.

This essay isn’t going to be a philosophical exploration or introspective reflection on any deeper meaning or takeaway from my experience talking with twins. Instead, I think the most interesting write-up—albeit at the expense of my pride—I could provide you in connection with this particular Piece of Elsewhere is a retelling of how this trip almost killed me.

Twins Cancellation

I had spent weeks prepping and pre-interviewing and scheduling with TWO different sets of twins who were to be my “focus twins” for this project. The plan was to feature them most heavily, including outside of the official Twins Days festivities, with the event as the backdrop and B-roll.

Unfortunately, the set of brothers I had been planning with had to drop out. After years of attending the festival, it turns out they weren’t going to be able to make it to this year’s event because one of them was called out as a volunteer firefighter.

Respect to him, but disappointment for me. Although, if I had known what scheduling and intestinal chaos was awaiting me on this trip, I think I actually would have been sort of grateful to have one less thing to manage.

But before I even left, I was down a pair of twins without enough time to recruit new ones. The brothers were also going to be my in at the famous/infamous (I’m still not sure which it is) Bertram Hotel on the evening of my arrival. I had been led to believe, through lots of chatter in online comments and through the brothers themselves, that The Bertram was where the real party was.

As you’ll see in the video, there is SOMETHING about that place that I, a non-twin, have not yet been able to figure out. It’s either a big inside joke or allegedly the wildest annual party in Twinsburg.

As it turns out, I wasn’t going to be able to make it to the hotel anyway because of what was about to befall me at the airport. So, I guess it worked out. And I still had the Aguilar sisters onboard—Alecia and Anita.

I set off with plenty of time to make my flight.

Airport Chaos

First flight, smooth. I had a layover in Minneapolis. That’s where it stopped going smoothly.

You know how sometimes airlines will overbook their flights and then offer a cash incentive for people to give up their seat and take a later flight? This was the first opportunity I had to take them up on it.

I wasn’t initially going to jump on it because I was planning to still try to mosey my way into The Bertram that evening before it got too late, but I didn’t know if anyone would let me hang without the twins who invited me and the incentive had just gotten up to $600, so I finally agreed to take a later flight that would get me to Cleveland around 10:00PM or so.

In the end, it was $700. I think that extra $100 used up all my luck for the week, though.

I now had like 5 more hours to kill in the airport before departure. Fortunately, my Venture X card could get me into one of the lounges, but they only let you in max 3 hours before your departure. The wait wasn’t too bad. I got some work done, and people watching is fun.

But I kept getting alerts in my Delta app that my flight—the one I had switched to with an already much later arrival—was being delayed. I kept getting the alerts because it kept being delayed, again and again. Four stacked delays.

I don’t remember what time we eventually got out of Minneapolis, but I recall it being between 10:30 and 11:00PM. I hadn’t slept in the airport, and I don’t sleep well on planes.

Actually, I kind of don’t sleep well in general, but that’s another topic.

Rental Car Frustration

I really wasn’t too bothered by the later flight or ensuing delays, knowing that I would still arrive well before I was scheduled to meet with the Aguilar twins in the morning before heading over to the festival. What had me growing anxious was that all these delays meant that the Hertz rental car facility in Cleveland was now scheduled to close BEFORE I arrived.

I was messaging, with crappy airport internet, with some support person at Hertz to try to ensure I would be able to pick up my car when I got there. They told me not to worry, “we’re tracking your flight,” and they also would have someone remain up to one hour after their closing time to accommodate me.

But what I couldn’t seem to get them (or the bot I was speaking to) to understand is that no, they in fact were NOT tracking my flight. They were tracking my ORIGINAL flight, the one that I had given up my seat on because it was overbooked. In fact, when I opened up the Hertz app, it showed that my rental had already begun and they hoped I was enjoying the vehicle.

As soon as I landed in Cleveland, I hurried to the shuttle that takes people to the off-site rental facility. Of course, it couldn’t be on-site and of course the shuttle took 15 minutes to arrive. When it finally got there, the driver made it clear to me and the other few people getting aboard, “I’ll take you over there, but they’re pretty much closed up,” or something to that effect.

They were closed up. Nobody at any rental counter. Out of nowhere, it started pouring big, heavy, Midwest raindrops as I stood under an overhang. Fortunately, the rain didn’t last long though.

It was after 1:00AM and past the extra time that the Hertz helper told me they would wait. In my tired mind, I wondered how they could start my rental in the app and be asking me how I was enjoying my experience when I had never even seen my car yet.

But there was still hope—that Venture X card was going to come in clutch again, for I am a member of the Hertz President’s Circle. I have the ability to pick up a vehicle directly, without meeting anyone at the counter, just by finding one in the President’s Circle section and hitting the road.

Besides, according to the app, I already had the vehicle. I walked out to the parking lot and located what I’m pretty confident was the exact one I was actually supposed to be given. Doors unlocked, keys inside, I threw my bags in and headed for the exit. It was around 1:30AM now, I believe.

But guess what—even President’s Circle members apparently can’t leave the rental car parking lot after hours without being cleared by someone at the booth on the way out. The exit was heavily blocked with big yellow barriers. I sat there for a minute, staring at the empty booth, somewhat numb to the situation but still harboring an ember of resentment that a company can charge me for a rental I was unable to pick up because Delta couldn’t get their crap together.

Think about hotels—they can staff someone all through the night for whenever someone needs to check in, but if the car I am desperately depending on and already paid for needs to be retrieved outside the hours that are convenient to the Hertz people, it’s just tough luck for me, and I gotta sit and wait until the sun comes up?

I had headed to Ohio to cover twins, but now I was thinking about an exposé and revolt piece against the rental car industry…

I went back and parked the vehicle. I was going to need one tomorrow (at this early morning hour, it was actually later today) for my filming plans. For this reason, I didn’t want to spend $50 each way to Uber to my Airbnb on the other side of Cleveland, only to stay a few hours before I needed to head right back to get this same rental car I was now sitting in without anyone to let me out.

I considered “sleeping” in the car until the Hertz counter opened. But I didn’t want to alarm or be alarmed myself when someone discovered me in one of their vehicles. Plus, it didn’t seem as comfortable as a bench or something I could lie out on. So, I caught the shuttle back to the Cleveland airport to spend another 4-5 hours until I could come back and get my car.

More Airport Chaos

At this point, I had now paid for an evening of car and one night at an Airbnb that I had not actually used.

I had been keeping my Airbnb host updated as my flights were being delayed about how I wasn’t sure when I was actually going to be arriving at their property. I had booked a room in their house, so it mattered more that they knew I was coming than if I had the place to myself.

Once I decided to park it in CLE for the remainder of the night, I messaged the host that I wasn’t going to make it until the following evening.

“Ah, that sucks.”

If you’re still reading this, you may be wondering when the almost-pooping-my-pants part of the story comes into play. We’re almost there.

As a preliminary bit of TMI for the reader, I have irritable bowel syndrome. Truly, IBS is just the catch-all term for when your guts don’t work quite right, but the doctors haven’t been able to identify a more specific cause or remedy. I just know that I have a sensitive digestive system on good days, and it doesn’t take much to throw it really out of whack on bad days.

Well, this had been a bad day. It was turning into a bad two days without any sleep, as I slumped into a corner of the airport pre-security (you can’t get past without a flight, plus they were closed up for the night too) where there actually were no long benches to lie out on or services open to get a snack or drink.

On the shuttle back to the airport from the rental facility, I had asked Claude AI to give me a rundown on what was available at the Cleveland airport and where I might be able to settle in for the rest of the night. Claude confidently lied to me about a Dunkin’ being open late at the front before security, with comfy benches nearby. I spent 10 or 15 minutes wandering around and sending photos of my surroundings to Claude before it finally conceded that it didn’t know what it was talking about and that I was screwed. I’m paraphrasing, but in essence…

Oh yes, back to my bowels.

I had only slept 2 hours the night before my trip, and now it was deep into a second night with no sleep. I don’t totally understand the biological mechanism that makes this happen, but a lack of sleep makes my guts worse. By this point, I was feeling twists and pulls and aches inside, along with probably being a little dehydrated.

As the night wore on, I wouldn’t have been able to catch any shut-eye even if I did have a nice comfy bench to lay on—my intestines had decided to revolt against me.

I was getting up to head to the restroom repeatedly. Like, more times than I can count. I’ll spare you the gory details, seeing how I’m probably already sharing too much, but I’ll say that there is only so much stuff inside the human digestive tract at any given moment. But my guts weren’t taking inventory. This was just war.

As the night wore on, I had the thought, “I think I can now better understand the poor souls who commit crimes out of desperation.” Like, I didn’t commit any crimes that night in the Cleveland airport, but I kind of understood it.

I was tired, frustrated, thirsty, and suffering an increasingly raw backside. I was also getting more anxious about the fact that I wasn’t going to be feeling my best for the filming. I really wanted to be on my creative game and personable with the people I was going to be talking to on camera. I wanted to make sure I caught opportunities in the moment, spoke clearly, etc.

But at this point, I was just trying to survive. At this point, which was 3:05AM sitting on a toilet just outside of baggage claim, I was taking notes in my phone about what I would write about in connection with this Piece of Elsewhere. At this point, I had realized that the accompanying essay was probably not going to be much about twins, and that my readers were going to learn about my IBS.

I made it through the night. I thought about Michael Jordan’s flu game—the job must be done. I came here with a content mission and I had to dig deep.

The sun was rising, and I hopped back on the shuttle to the rental car hub.

I watched them give the man ahead of me in line the car I had been sitting in, in the rain, hours earlier. After he drove off, they realized that was the car held for me, and they needed to have an employee go fetch a different one.

I finally got a car.

Driving the Aguilars

As you can see in the video, I spent some time with the Aguilar sisters at their rental, speaking with them as they got ready for the festival together.

What you don’t see in the video is that, although I wasn’t as groggy as I had been, my digestive system was still angry at me for having not slept and only refueled it with a bit of water and energy drink.

There is a moment in the video where it becomes apparent that the sisters are now alone with my camera. I had left for a moment, telling them I was kinda not feeling well and I was going to grab some cold medicine as they finished getting ready, and then I’d come back and we would leave. I had previously, before the trip got underway, offered to drive Alecia and Anita to the festival site after we filmed in the morning. I figured that, besides being considerate, it might also be an opportunity to get some more footage while we drove.

But when I left their apartment to get medicine, it wasn’t for cold medicine. It was for the kind of medicine that I hoped would help neutralize my guts. The girl at the gas station counter observed what I was purchasing and started recommending I get a different brand if I really needed help, because that other kind was the good stuff. But she was ringing up the generic stuff as she said it, so that’s what I bought.

Maybe I should have taken her advice because I did not find much relief with the cheaper stuff. But then again, my twisted system is already a wild horse no doctor has broken yet, even on its calmest days.

Jumping ahead, I was driving the Aguilars to the event. They were on a time crunch because they really wanted to get there in time to join the parade that all the twins in matching outfits make through central Twinsburg. I wanted to help them make it to the parade as well, but we had barely gone two blocks when I started sweating.

Naturally, I didn’t want to reveal to these two young ladies, whom I had only recently met and who were now held hostage in my vehicle with a parade to catch, that I was really sorry but I’m about to poop my pants so I need to pull over.

I strained and I prayed and I turned the AC up to do my best to endure, hoping it would somehow settle until I could drop them off. But then, as I saw a gas station on the corner and didn’t know how far it would be until we passed another one, I sheepishly admitted, “Hey, I know this is really bad timing, but I really need to use the restroom. I kind of haven’t been feeling well,” as I turned into the parking lot.

The sisters were very understanding and sympathetic, which I appreciated. As soon as I stepped into the gas station, I saw a sign that said the restroom was out of order, which I did not appreciate.

Somehow, the brief notion that I was going to have relief temporarily put my stomach at ease, at least relative to what I had been feeling, as I walked back out to the car. I informed the twins about the restroom being unavailable, but that I thought I could just wait until we got there. I didn’t want to risk them being any more late than they were already going to be.

So, I drove as fast as I safely could. AC blowing and prayers flowing.

I told you, this one has nothing to do with twins.

This is a long essay, and I think I ought to wrap it up.

No, through the power of prayer and a specific group of well-trained muscles, I did not poo my pants. I did hold it so hard while driving the Aguilars that I actually thought I was going to throw up instead of messing my pants, but that didn’t end up happening either.

I rallied with water and porta-potty stops at the festival. I met some really nice people, got some video, and became even more intrigued about what actually goes on at The Bertram. I still have some investigating to do on that.

I’m grateful to be able to interact with people and their stories in this way.

Thanks for watching and reading.

— Camden

Most people are experts in something the rest of us have never heard of — a job, a scene, an isolated phenomenon, something you're three years deep in and never thought to explain.

Tell me what you know from the inside. Hit reply, or write to [email protected]. I read every one.