It’s taken an amazing amount of time for me to realize that my sister is my twin.

There are eight years and two brothers between us – which explains why this took me so long to figure out.

I overlooked the more obvious: we’re the same height and our eyes are the same color.

And the fact that we both like to be unique and unusual could be explained away for a time.

The most glaring piece of evidence to this point had been our frustrating tendency to order the same food at a restaurant.

We do not like this.

We want something unusual so, when we both study the menu and come up with the same selection, we glare at the other. This even happens when each tries to avoid what we’re sure the other will order.

But the final straw came last week when a text message alert blew on my cell phone.

Among my choices for a text message alert sound is one entitled Sherwood, which is supposed to sound like a horn blown in the forest.

You know, Robin Hood and all that.

It’s not the most obvious of choices for texts, which was why I chose it.

But when I checked my phone, I didn’t have a text message. I was busy so just stowed the phone and went on.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my sister was with me.

We were both busy.

And then Sherwood announced that I had a text message again. I checked and I did have one this time.

My sister narrowed her eyes. “That was your text message tone?”

“Yes.”

“The same one I picked?”

Well, that explained the earlier Sherwood tone I had heard and ignored. It was on her phone.

I stared at her and it finally came together. We were twins.

How else could you explain this?