DOPPELGANGERS

Isn't it awesome when you encounter some everyday gal who reminds you of a famous gal?

Then every time you look at the everyday gal — at the office, say — you think of the famous gal, and it adds a touch of glamour to your workday.

And it also reinforces the notion that there are only a few types of people in the world, which is a very comforting, if really untrue, thought.

Like there’s this gal at work who is just like Sarah Silverman, or, as she’s known in the business, Big S.

I admit I didn’t know who Sarah Silverman was until a week ago. I had read an article about her in the New Yorker last year or something, but I didn’t have a face or anything to put with the name, so she didn’t stick.

Then I saw her comedy show on cable TV: “Jesus is Magic.” It’s very smart and edgy. And after I saw it I felt very smart and edgy — just for having seen it. I felt like I had discovered something. You know how that goes.

But then when I asked Boy George about her, I found out that instead of being on the leading edge of the pop culture curve I was way behind it.

I said to Boy, as we were driving to Olathe Saturday (we go to Olathe all the time now), “Have you ever heard of Sarah Silverberg?”

And he said, “You mean Sarah Silverman?” And then he rattled off a bunch of movies and TV shows she’s been in, and he noted that she did some voices on “Crank Yankers” (She was the blind stripper with the seeing eye dog, he said, and she was also some lady who was pissed because her aromatherapy candle smelled like doody).

And, feeling trumped, I said, “Yeah, but ‘Jesus is Magic’ is really her chef-d’oeuvre, wouldn’t you agree?”

And he admitted he had never seen it. Ha!

So then we agreed to watch it that night. But in the meantime I spoiled a few of her jokes for him.

Such as:

“When God gives you AIDS, make lemonaids.”

And: “After 30 there are a lot of risks associated with pregnancy; really, the best time to get pregnant is when you’re a black teenager.”

Funny.

She also has some jokes about Sept. 11 and the "alleged" Holocaust. And those are even funnier, if you can imagine.

I didn’t spoil those for Boy, but I did further intrigue him by telling him that Big S reminds me of this gal at work, whom I’ll call Big L.

I used to call Big L “LG,” which stood for Loud Girl, because when I first knew her she was only a voice across the room, and it was loud and it was a girl’s.

I mean, I could more aptly call her BLJG — Big Loud Jewish Girl — but BLJG sounds more like a sexual orientation than a cable news broadcaster, which is what Big L is.

It took me awhile to see that Big L was also funny, in addition to being loud and a girl.

The first few things I heard her say were not obviously humorous.

Like: “What is the difference between a car and a vehicle?”

And: "Have you ever heard of a damn-o-clean sword?"

And: “But that’s not, you know, ethically right. Know what I’m saying?”

These aren’t, you know, jokes. This is just her worldview. This is the type of thing she says.

Eventually I noticed that she ended every other sentence with the independent clause “know what I’m saying?” and began every other sentence with the dependent clause “When I was in rehab.”

Which, if you think about it, is a natural comedic template: "When I was in rehab, (fill in humorous anecdote). Know what I'm saying?"

One time Big S got in trouble for saying “chink” on network TV. And that’s the sort of thing that you could imagine happening to Big L. Not that either one is racist. They're not. But that’s what edgy means — that you’re on the edge of what is considered proper, and sometimes you slip over the edge, and sometimes you pole-vault over it.

So Big L is funny like Big S, even though she doesn't mean to be, and they're both Jewish and look alike and project the same attitude. And this makes work more fun.

And if that weren't enough: Another co-worker, a broadcaster gal, looks remarkably like Tina Fey: