Ever since I can remember, which at my age is about seven minutes, Bob has had another identity, a character he refers to as his brother, Bob. I don't mean to sound prejudiced but the thing is, Bob's brother is exactly like all of the people with whom he grew up.

The fact is that he really was raised in the backwoods of New Hampshire and lived in a run-down trailer park. All of his pals had homemade vehicles that resembled broken go-carts and homemade tattoos that resembled things my editor would delete if I described them.

They would have parties where they'd play games such as: "Who could do the freakiest thing with a body part?" One person could stretch his bottom lip so it covered his chin. (I know you're all trying this. I could actually do it. Knowing that I can do it, if you weren't trying it before, I bet you are now.)

Another guy could whistle by pursing his lips and breathing in. (Yes. Just did it. You?)

The gentleman who won top honors could hold his breath so long that his face would turn bright red and his eyes appeared that they were going to pop out. That was the moment he expelled his glass eye.

Now you can see why it's so easy for Bob to slip into his brother Bob's character. I'm not kidding. He really does this every other month or so.

Brother Bob's latest efforts have been to become a body noise ventriloquist. Instead of throwing his voice, he tries throwing coughs, sneezes, hiccups, etc. Don't think about what "etc." is referring to. His most recent appearance was on Halloween, as you can see in the picture above.

Does anybody remember Bob Newhart's TV show in which he owned an inn in Vermont? If so, I bet that your favorite characters were the three woodsmen brothers. The vocal one would always say, "Hi, I'm Larry; this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl."

The brothers' favorite kinds of jobs included things like removing "pests" around the inn. Take that word any way you want. I imagine that people who were thought of as pests would flee by merely being in the brothers' presence.

Darryl, and/or Darryl, is the spitting image (literally) of Bob, I mean Bob's brother, Bob.

This is so odd because my husband, Bob, is the shyest, most introverted person you could meet. But when he becomes his brother, he's an enormously loud, obnoxious doofus. Yet the thousands (seriously) of people who know this character absolutely adore

him. If they haven't seen a picture of him in a while, people ask me where he is. Now what's just as freaky is that people ask "how" he is. Strangely, many have said to me, "I have a feeling that Bob and his brother, Bob, are actually the same person."

The reason they give as proof is that they've never seen both Bob and his brother in the same picture. The worrisome part is that the person who says this to me the most is Bob.

So now you know, Bob's brother, Bob, is fine. But if he comes to your door wanting candy, please don't remind him that it's past Halloween. Just give him a can of anything like soup, tuna or lard. He'll still think it's candy, and you'll get to see the thing he was best known for during his parties with his kinfolk — opening a can with his teeth.