Body Swap

Who hasn’t enjoyed a few body swap stories? Whether it’s the parent/child Freaky Friday/Vice Versa plot line or the criminal/cop pairing of Face/Off or the teenage neighbors of It’s a Boy Girl Thing who just can’t understand each other until they temporarily switch identities. Seeing as I was ten years old when the Disney channel released the gem, Wish Upon a Star continues to be a favorite of mine. And I’ll admit to being a little nervous about the ramifications of Buffy and Faith flip flopping in season 4.

It’s a popular story line because we all wonder sometimes what it would be like to be someone else. When we whitewash someone else’s live into being something perfect, these body swap stories are there to remind us, You may not realize it now, but you’re totally the only person you really want to be.

Which is a sentiment I totally agree with.

But still…..

It would be kinda cool. For a little while. Especially if you knew that you were going to get your own body back eventually. Though, I’m less interested in doing this with real people and would be more into some temporary body swapping with literary characters myself.

First of all, you probably know a little bit more about these characters than you do about real people – their weird habits, what they do when no one else is around, how they really think about the people around them. This would give you a moderately better chance of pretending to be them without anyone else noticing. After all, it’s much harder for literary characters to keep secrets that it is for real people. Or is it? I’ve always wondered if characters keep secrets even from their authors. And this would be one way to find out.

Downside? The character doesn’t even know you exist, so they’re probably going to wreak havoc on your life during the swap.

Still, I think I’d risk it.

And at this very moment, I think the character I would most like to body swap with would be Abby Sinclair from Allison Pang's urban fantasy series.

I really want to spend some time in the Hallows and hang out with the whole gang. Mostly so I can get a chance to get more details on Mel's story. Plus that enchanted iPod would be pretty fun to play with. I would also love to be more conscious of my dreams. What is the heart of my dreaming? I have my suspicions, but I’d like to know for sure. And since Abby doesn't always know what's going on, I could probably get away with asking the occasional question.

On top of all this, since Abby's fairly used to being dropped into strange situations without all the details, I could totally trust her to roll with it and not cause too much chaos in my life whilst vacationing in my body.

Who would you switch with?