One morning, upon awakening from an agitated dream, Jeffery Shenkel found himself, in his bed, transformed into the image he had of himself – exactly as he had found himself every other morning. He had the same usual trouble waking up and getting out of bed, and he put on the same coat and scarf as every other winter day. He took the same train into town, and followed the same route to his workplace to which, after several years of routine monotony, he no longer even paid any attention. On the way, he read the free daily, all the while thinking to himself that he should really buy a subscription to a more serious newspaper. He thought this every week day.

When he arrived at his place of employment at ten minutes after nine, consistent in his habitual lateness, he said good morning to the girl at the front desk like he was in the habit of doing every morning, only this morning, after pronouncing her customary hello, she added another phrase: "How may I help you?"

Jeffery was surprised by this question. Not only did it constitute a divergence from their routine, but it was also a question to which he did not really know how to respond. "Well, I don’t really need anything," he stammered, "I was just saying hello."

The receptionist seemed even more perplexed than he was. "Yes, and a good morning to you also, Sir. Do you have an appointment with someone this morning?"

In the several years that Jeffery had worked here, this was the longest conversation he had ever had with the young and pretty girl whom was normally the first person he spoke to every morning. "No," he said, "I work here. I was just saying hello like I do every day."

The girl looked at him and squinted as if trying to decide if she did, in fact, recognize him. "Are you sure you work here?" she asked. At this point he became a little flustered and embarrassed, and he could feel his cheeks filling in with a natural rouge.

"We have said hello to each other every day for the last seven years, and she still doesn’t recognize me," he thought to himself. "Yes, I’m pretty sure I do," he said while fumbling with his inside jacket pocket to finally produce a white and blue badge. "Look, here is my ID card. See? It says 'Jeffery Shenkel' right here."

The receptionist seemed slightly embarrassed, and then after a moment’s hesitation she ventured a look at the badge. She studied the picture for a few seconds, looked at him and then at the picture again. "Well, Sir, I’m sorry, but I recognize Mr. Shankel from the picture, but I’m afraid that I don’t recognize you."

At this, Jeffery became red and started to lose his temper. "What do you mean, you don’t recognize me? There’s my name, and there I am, right there. Is this some sort of a practical joke?" At this point, his voice had risen a bit, and because of the commotion, the security guard made his way to the reception desk, where there was already a line of several sighing businessmen whose expressions made it clear that they were late for a very important meeting.

"What’s the problem over here?" asked the security guard.

"This guy says he works here," the receptionist fired off before Jeffery had a chance to respond. "And he has an ID card, but it’s obviously someone else’s picture. It says Shankel, and I know Mr. Shankel, and this guy’s not him."

"Shenkel! It’s Jeffery Shenkel, not Shankel," responded Jeffery, who was getting more and more exasperated. "Furthermore, this is obviously my picture. I mean, it’s a little dated, I suppose. Maybe six months old or so, but this is my picture," he said as he handed his card to the security guard.

The largish blue uniformed man took the card and looked at it. He alternated his scrutiny from the card to Jeffery, and then to the card again. He looked up again at Jeffery and said, "Sorry, buddy. This ain’t you."

Jeffery stood looking at the security guard. Dumbfounded, he asked, "What do you mean, it’s not me?"

"What I mean is," started the guard, "this ain’t you. Look at the picture. For starters, this Shankel fellow has a lot more hair on his head than you do, and a lot less pounds. It isn’t too hard to see from the picture. Mr. Shankel don’t even have a double chin like you do. I’m not trying to say that there’s a problem with that – don’t get me wrong. I got me a little bit of a spare tire above the belt, myself, but I sure as fire ain’t trying to say I’m Mr. Shankel, when I don’t look a bit like him."

Jeffery looked down at himself. It’s true that his shirt collar and pants felt tighter than they normally did, but besides that, he felt exactly the same as he did every other morning. He looked into the polished black of the receptionist’s desk, to study his reflection. He was just as bald as he ever was, and his second chin bulged a bit over his collar like it always did. He couldn’t remember a time when he looked any different. Then he took another look at the picture, where he recognized himself: the same pudgy face, the same receding hairline, the same bad complexion. He could not understand why these two people were incapable of seeing that the picture was his.

Suddenly, an idea came to Jeffery. "Call up to the eleventh floor. Get my secretary to come down, and she will straighten this all out."

The security guard nodded his approval to the receptionist, who then dialed the extension for Jeffery’s secretary. "Yes, Mrs. Cheavey, this is the reception desk. Well, we kind of have a problem down here, and we were wondering if you could help us. Yes, well, no. I mean, I think it would be better if you could just come down. Oh, no. Nothing like that. Ok, great. Thank you." She hung up the receiver and told the two men along with the waiting businessmen, "She’ll be down in just a minute."

The group of businessmen seemed to be less anxious now, and resembled spectators at a circus or a street performance who were curious to see how the spectacle would end. A few of them had even started discussing the particulars of the case amongst themselves. None of them, it seemed, believed Jeffery, and most thought that the receptionist and security guard were being very generous, perhaps inordinately so, in their treatment of this short fat slob of a man who was obviously a crook, or even worse, mentally deranged.

The receptionist, the security guard and Jeffery stood silently waiting for the secretary to come down from the eleventh floor. Jeffery thought about making small talk in order to show them that after the confusion was cleared up, he would not hold a grudge, but in the end he decided that it was unnecessary, and besides, he could not think of a single thing to talk about with them.

After almost five minutes of awkward silence which was only broken by the indiscreet hypothesizing of the waiting businessmen, the secretary finally emerged from the elevator. "So how can I help you today?" she asked the receptionist without even looking at Jeffery.

Both the receptionist and Jeffery started to say something, but were cut off by the security guard who pointed at Jeffery and asked the secretary, "Sorry to ask you to come all the way down here, but do you recognize this guy?"

At this, the secretary looked over at Mr. Shenkel and gave him a scrutinizing look that scanned up and down the length of his body several times. She looked as if she were trying to pick someone out of a police lineup, or as if she were trying to decode an especially difficult specimen of the Magic Eye puzzles she was so fond of. After almost a minute of careful observation, she shrugged her shoulders in defeat. "I don’t know," she said, "I give up. Who is he? Is he famous? Should I know who he is?"

Something about the secretary’s words seemed especially defeating to Jeffery. The fact that she did not even speak to him directly made her failure to recognize him all the more humiliating. He thought of mentioning the flowers he had sent her daughter when she had been in the hospital for a bad case of the chickenpox. He thought of proving his identity with the knowledge that Mrs. Cheavey was currently having an affair with the guy who worked by the photocopy machine. He even thought of pleading with her, telling her that he would make sure she got a raise if only she would recognize him. But in the end, Jeffery just sighed and slouched even further, becoming even less dignified looking and allowing his two chins to give birth to a third.

"Didn’t think so, Mrs. Cheavey," declared the security guard with a certain air of self-satisfaction. "This guy has Mr. Shankel’s ID card, and was claiming to be him," he continued. "But you ain’t him, now are ya’?" he finished, this time to Jeffery.

"Actually it’s Shenkel, not Shankel," corrected the secretary. "But this is clearly not him. I mean, he doesn’t even look like him. Mr. Shenkel is much thinner and has much more hair, and I’d say he’s a good three inches taller than this man." She continued, "And to be honest, I’m kind of worried. Mr. Shenkel hasn’t come in yet, and it’s nearly 9:30. I called his home, but no one answered. I wouldn’t worry, except that he always gets to the office at exactly 9:10. Always. In seven years, I’ve never seen him get here at a different time."

At this, the security guard put on a more serious expression. Glad that he would finally be able to assist in some actual police work, instead of just policing the gray lobby where nothing ever happened, he took hold of Jeffery’s arm. His grip was a bit rougher and tighter than it needed to be, and he repeated a phrase that rolled off the tongue as if he had been repeating it to himself in the mirror for years: "I think we might just have to pay a little visit to my colleagues down at the precinct." Then he beckoned to the receptionist to give him a phone, and while dialing a number he obviously knew by heart, he smiled at the secretary and said, "I’ll take care of things from here, Mam. Get back upstairs and give us a call if you hear from Mr. Shank...or, Shenk...well, your boss, I mean."

Jeffery silently slumped down into the chair next to the receptionist, while his wrist remained slightly but uncomfortably twisted over the desk by the security guard, who was now excitedly recounting the foiled caper over the telephone to his colleagues. He wanted to cry out to his accusers and reclaim his identity, but no words came to mind. All he could do was look at his balding and chubby face reflected back at him in the polished black of the reception desk while the noise of the businessmen’s commentaries buzzed around him.