When I First Stepped Onto the Moon, I Had No Idea I’d Be Featured On a Ten Cent Stamp

Imposter Syndrome is something we can all relate to, especially if we’re not good at what we do. But even if we are good at what we do, most of us still suffer from bouts of imposter syndrome, unwilling to accept our own legitimacy. But what about actual imposters, like Frank Abagnale, Jr., portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2002 film, Catch Me if You Can? Did he suffer from imposter syndrome, too?

There are lessons we can learn from the movie, such as “don’t be an imposter, and especially don’t be a check forger.” You’ll eventually get caught. For me, though, I drew a different lesson, reinforced by a recent experience at Story Story Night, where I got paid to pretend I was once a veterinarian. It was part of Story Story Night’s 16th birthday celebration, a reinterpretation of the classic game show, To Tell the Truth. The lesson I learned from Catch Me if You Can is that if you don’t make the same mistakes as Frank Abagnale did, for instance calling Carl Hanratty every Christmas Eve, and if you do it for entertainment rather than profit, you can probably get away with your scheme for much longer.

After impersonating a veterinarian for no more than eight minutes, along with two other veterinarian imposters, one of whom was the actual veterinarian, the audience voted to determine who the real veterinarian was. Anyone who donated at least $16 to Story Story Night could come up and ask us questions, like “what’s the best kind of drug to tranquilize a large animal?” And based on our answers, the audience could make a more informed vote.

Audiences are smart. They knew at least one of the imposters was me, and they were right. They were even able to tell who the real veterinarian was.

Between my new found love of impersonating veterinarians and watching Leo DiCaprio in his role as the imposter Frank Abegnale, Jr, I concluded that I could be wildly successful as an identity thief, but not the criminal kind. The on stage kind.

What that would look like is that I would perform as the character I’m impersonating, tell a story, then have the audience guess if the story really happened to me. Or if it happened at all. I’d throw in true stories from my past just to mix things up. I think it could be fun. I could even do a corporate version, where I’d get with a company beforehand and tell an employee story as part of a “let’s see if you really know who you work with” team building exercise.

I can also see this working as part of my wedding officiant duties, telling tales from the point of view of old girlfriends and boyfriends, family, and friends. I told you about being a wedding officiant, didn’t I? And notary? In service of the grand vision of one day selling out Madison Square Garden as a storyteller? I can never remember who I told what.

I’m calling this new offering CATCH ME BUT YOU CAN’T, in tribute to the movie, but with more built in confidence since I won’t be breaking any laws, so what are you going to do about it? I told the real veterinarian I wanted to use his story but that I can’t afford to pay him, and would he be all right with that? He said he’d let me know, but so far he hasn’t. I’ll take that as a “yes” and keep going till the cease and desist arrives. Besides, it was me, not him, who wrote the part about the she elks smoking cigarettes out in the pasture after the bull elks were done with them. He had nothing to do with it other than being the real veterinarian, which, as far as I’m concerned, entitles him to nothing.

Around the same time as Frank Abagnale’s imposter career was coming to an end at the hands of French police, of all people, the United States was landing astronauts at a makeshift studio on the moon. Neil Armstrong was the first of the space men to get lunar dust up his nose, but there were others. As far as I know, nobody’s impersonating Neil Armstrong any more, but I’m willing to give it a shot. What I like about being Neil Armstrong’s imposter is that I’m old enough for my target audience to believe I really did walk on the moon, and that lunar dust makes you sneeze even worse than earth dust, because of all the carbon in it.

You don’t have to be entirely believable to be a successful imposter. Just believable enough to make it through a one-hour show.