I received a letter in the mail from a credit union this week stating that the bank had no record of a Visa Card payment in over a month. It was imperative that I bring my account current in the amount of $33.00 or contact their office to make satisfactory arrangements for repayment. There was only one problem with this--I don't have a Visa Card or an account with this bank. This was a message for the other Chris Jungle.

As much as I like to think of myself as an American original, the fact is that someone in my town has the same name as me. While I have never met my moniker-sharing buddy, people have mistaken my name for his (and quite possibly his name for mine). A bouncer at bar always remembered me because his kid and Chris Jungle were buddies in high school. A girl I didn't know called me up, wanting to catch up and see if Chris Jungle ever thought about getting back together. Chris Jungle apparently plays drums, and once in a blue moon, someone asks if I want jam with them. Sounds like this Chris Jungle is a decent sort of fellow.

As the bank auditor asked me questions about my mother's maiden name and what middle initial is, I began to wonder if this Chris Jungle and I are really one in the same. Am I living my life in some sort of fugue state where I can't remember most of the things I do? My mind flashed back to Fight Club, The Manchurian Candidate and Memento, and I tried in vain to remember a life I've never led. Maybe when I think I'm lying on the couch watching baseball, I'm actually living a completely different existence. Maybe not.

What's in a name, anyway? I've known a couple handfuls of folks who have changed their names at some point in their lives. One guy in particular introduced himself to me as Elliot, switched his name to Jimmy, and now that I'm finally used to calling him Jimmy, he has changed his name back to Elliot. By the way, his parents named him Mark.

Does the name we have dictate the type of lives we lead? Would I still be a columnist if my last name was something other than Jungle? Would Hitler have tried to take over the world if his last name was Grenchel? Would we have remembered Moses if his last name was Jones? If the other Chris Jungle was named Randy Simmons, would he have paid the $33.00 on time? Boys named Sue? Girls named Joe? Presidents named Bush? Does it matter? Should it matter?

As near as I can tell, the bank made a simple mistake. They didn't have the complete information for the other Chris Jungle, opened the phone book and copied down my address. Luckily, I'm not the sort of guy who is going to take someone else's Visa Card and bank account number and use it for malevolent purposes. The last thing I need is Chris Jungle after me.

No matter how unique you think you are, there's a good chance someone else is living with the same name as you. Think of all the e-mail names you have to go through to find one that no one is using. Another columnist named Chris Jungle has probably written about this topic, and he might have done it far more eloquently than I'm doing right now. Maybe that other columnist was me, but I honestly can't remember.

That's what names are for in the first place. So you can remember who other people are without referring to race, creed, culture, height, weight, shoe size, fashion sense, or whatever you think is the defining feature of a person. Don't worry, no matter how many people are named the same thing as you, no one has the same fingerprints as you.

The lives of Chris Jungle and I will probably continue cross paths. I'll keep politely explaining that he isn't me and I'm not him. Unless I discover that I'm wrong, and I actually am living a double life. I sincerely hope not, though. It's hard enough living the life of one Chris Jungle.

Chris Jungle is contemplating a name change to Moses Jones.